Grounded
by ExecutiveShrimp
Summary: Post-war, 2x1: A Preventer mission goes horribly wrong. Co-captains Duo and Heero both survive, but as changed men, and they have to rebuild their lives from the ground up.
1. Chapter 1

**First of all, I want to thank everyone who stuck with Dirty Job until the end. I know I kept you waiting a long time, so it means the world to me that you were still invested enough to read the finale and that many of you were so kind as to leave a review.**

**As for this story: I started writing it three years ago (!) and I only remember how long it's been because I actually had some fun editing together a trailer for it on YouTube and I could look the date up there. The story is mostly written, only the final couple of chapters are missing. What I figured I'd do, is start posting chapters at a reasonable pace, which gives me enough time to complete the final part of the story, if it is received well enough. Because what I realized, reading those final reviews for Dirty Job, is that I am still invested in this fandom and reading how much all of you are also still in love with these characters and are enjoying my interpretations of them, can still light a fire under my ass. **

**Overall story warnings: unbeta'd, sexual, violent content (graphic, at times).**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part I – Heero's POV**

Many things in life are difficult, he had learned in the last five years of peace, but running wasn't one of them.

Heero ran in front, forcing the team to keep pace with him. They had managed for the first eight miles, but for the past three laps he noticed that the distance between them gradually increased. He heard their pants and one of them was groaning in pain. He knew without having to look which one was in trouble and probably wouldn't make the twelve mile mark. Their breathing was shallow and too fast as all six of them struggled to stay on his tail.

His own breathing was controlled. In through the nose – out through the mouth. His gait was long to minimize effort – unlike his team's short little half-steps for which they had to work twice as hard. With the sway of his hips and the relaxation in his joints, he kept the impact of each step low. He knew his own body well and he knew that he could keep up his tempo for ten more miles, given the climate and simulated altitude. He loved to run. It was so easy.

"Am I going too fast for you?" He called over his shoulder, with no intention of slowing down.

"No, sir!" They chimed in unison; all but one, who couldn't even spare the breath to respond.

One lap later he noticed the falter in the rhythm of the footsteps behind him, after which he could only distinguish five sets of running shoes hitting the ground. Heero didn't stop. As they rounded the track, he saw him standing right where he had stopped running, doubled over, clutching his side in pain. Heero ran past him without acknowledging him. Behind him he heard one of the others ask their teammate if he was okay in passing.

"I'm fine…" he grunted.

Heero didn't understand their concern for their teammate, nor their sympathy. As their captain, he was not asking them to perform an impossible task; he never did. Heero was right there with them, on the tracks, on the obstacle course, on the shooting range, showing them that it could be done if they were focused and dedicated. If one of them wasn't willing to push himself, he was holding the entire team back. He was a weak link. They didn't understand yet how dangerous that would be on a mission, perhaps that was why they still had patience for the man, when Heero did not. The weak link was where the chain breaks, when everyone's life is hanging by that chain.

Heero didn't see a teammate unable to run twelve miles in preparation for an annual physical fitness and aptitude test, he saw a man who would need to be rescued during a mission and put everyone's life at risk.

He completed the final lap and stood on the white finish line, waiting for the five remaining members of his team to catch up.

Once they stumbled past the line, two of them laid down on the ground and the other three bent forward, putting their hands on their knees. The sixth teammate came stumbling towards them from where he had given up.

"None of you have been putting in the necessary training," Heero concluded.

They all faced him. One of the two women argued: "We finished well within time."

"Yes," he concurred.

"That's good enough to pass the test."

"It's not good enough in the field."

She rolled her eyes at him and straightened up, but she didn't say anything else.

Heero turned his attention to the one that hadn't been able to keep up. "Beck," he started.

"I know. I know… I'm working on it,… Sir." He was still out of breath.

"Obviously you're not working hard enough."

Beck nodded miserably. "I'm sorry, sir."

"The Twelve are still two months away," Viver snapped, she was always the one least afraid to speak her mind, "He can do it. He still has time."

"What if the team is deployed tomorrow?" Heero countered. "Would he still have enough time then?"

She wisely kept her mouth shut, rather than starting in on an argument they'd had before.

"It was like this last year too, Beck," the captain chastised. "If you had kept up your training, you wouldn't be in this position right now."

"I understand, sir. I apologize. I won't slack off again this time."

"Honestly, what did you expect?" Viver bit. She straightened her shoulders and glared at her captain. "You've kept us behind a desk for two years. We became Preventer agents to work in the field, but we've basically been working a nine to five as pencil pushers."

"Exactly. Leaving you plenty of spare time to train. Now hit the showers," he dismissed them.

Heero paid them no attention as he went to clear away the weights they had used for their earlier exercise, while the six of them dragged their feet back to the locker rooms.

He knew he'd need an Advil later in the afternoon, as had been the case every day for the past two weeks. Dealing with the group was more exhausting than he had anticipated, without the support of his co-captain. Usually, he preferred to step back and let Duo take charge. Duo could handle their assigned team much better than Heero could.

They had both joined the Preventer agency three years ago and chose to be stationed together at the L1 office, as opposed to the headquarters on earth. For the first year they worked missions as partners, until Une decided they should head their own team. Normally a single, senior agent would be nominated by Une to lead a team, but Une recognized that the two of them completed each other and she named them co-captains and assigned them six of the new recruits, who had graduated from the Preventer Academy that year with the highest marks. Within months, the team of newbies became Team One, achieving the highest rank in the agency.

Heero hadn't wanted to head a team, predicting the headache the hassle of social interactions would cause him, but Duo had convinced him. It wasn't for themselves, it wasn't because either of them coveted authority or the title of "Captain". With the support of the team, the two best agents in the agency could perform their missions with higher efficiency. Not much changed and Heero was grateful for that. They still went out into the field together as a twosome, unencumbered by the inexperienced team members, whose function was limited to research, communication, technical back-up, strategic planning and preparing the gear. During downtime they trained and ran drills with their team. The six were understandably eager to go out into the field, but Heero deemed they weren't ready yet.

He finished putting away the equipment and headed for the locker rooms himself. The locker rooms and indoor gym connected to the Preventer L1 Tower - overlooking the training field - with a glass walkway. The tower was modest in comparison to the headquarters on earth; just twelve floors of administrative offices, a communication center, a medical facility, holding cells, strategy rooms and work stations for the agents based out of L1.

Heero halted outside the door of the men's locker room as his ears picked up on a heated exchange.

"I can't wait for Duo to come back. Yuy is such a dick."

"I know. I can't deal with him. Fucking arrogant asshole."

He recognized the two voices as belonging to Haytham Grace and Luca Swafford. They never dared to talk back to him like Havana Viver, but he had overheard them complaining about him behind his back before. At least he could respect Viver for her honesty. Grace and Swafford had some of the highest scores on the twelve disciplines but they were hotheaded ego's that Heero would never trust to have his back in the field. Duo agreed: guys who talk smack behind your back, don't have your back.

As expected, the two men fell silent the moment Heero pushed the door open and stepped into the locker room. They looked his way and their mouths formed tight lines. The four men in the room acknowledged him with a forced, courteous nod.

Heero ignored all of them and retrieved his towel and his uniform from his locker and went to the shower stalls in the back. Once the water started running, the foursome felt comfortable enough to speak again, but they kept their voices hushed and Heero couldn't make out what they were saying. He didn't care about their pettiness. He knew they resented him for not letting them into the field and they resented his authority all the more because, even at the faked age of twenty-five, he was younger than any senior agent in the agency; the official age difference ranged from three to nine years.

Duo and Heero were the youngest team captains in the short history of the Preventer Agency, even with their documents backdating their date of birth by three years. But Duo was easy to like, so they could swallow his orders better than Heero's.

He showered quickly and got dressed in his uniform; forest green slacks, a moss green button-up and a Preventer jacket with his rank denoted on the shoulders, above the Preventer insignia. When he walked back to his locker, he noticed three of his team members were still there, in the process of getting dressed. Isra Beck had left to get back to work, but it appeared Thiago Rubo had stuck around to listen to Grace and Swafford talk shit about one of their captains.

They all stared at him in silence as he put his shower gel, shampoo and his duffel bag with his laundry into his organized locker. At the end of his shift he would come back to pick up his bag to take home with him. He slammed the locker shut and the three of them flinched. He regarded them coolly. "When you're done wasting time, you should get back to work."

"Yes, sir," Grace said through gritted teeth.

"Almost done, sir."

Heero nodded and stepped out. In the hallway he was met with the other members of the team, walking out of the women's locker room. Viver and Ming-Na Cho had been laughing about something, but they fell silent when their eyes landed on him.

Without a word the three of them went up to the first floor and walked down the glass walkway to the main building, where they stepped into an elevator together.

As they passed the fifth floor, Cho announced: "Beck and I will finish the analysis on the confiscated hard drive from case F-177 by the end of the day."

He didn't know why she informed him of that. He was counting on them finishing the analysis today, since it was their given deadline. He suspected she merely wanted to fill the silence. Duo also talked a lot when silences stretched on too long. Heero used to like the silence, but not anymore. Still, unsure of how to respond to Cho's redundant statement, he grunted: "Hn."

The doors opened on the tenth floor and the three of them stepped out and parted ways. Viver and Cho worked in the bullpen with the rest of the team, whereas Heero had the office he shared with his co-captain.

Although many agents accused the two of them of getting special treatment behind their backs, that really wasn't the case. Sharing a team meant sharing an office and while the square footage perfectly easily accommodated one desk and file cabinet, as was the case for the other team captains, they had two desks and two file cabinets crammed into their office. It didn't help that Duo wasn't particularly organized and he'd let paperwork gather in stacks on his desk and even on the floor. Heero preferred his work space empty, but with their desks pushed together, Duo's mess typically spilled over onto Heero's. It wasn't uncommon to be caught off guard by a tower of paper collapsing onto his own work, or for a cold cup of coffee to get knocked his way, or for a pencil pot to roll across his desk.

Heero accepted the hassle because in turn Duo kept their moody team in check.

When Duo had announced he had to spend two weeks on Earth teaching seminars at the Preventer Academy, Heero had hoped he'd at least get a lot of paperwork done in the meantime, without Duo's constant distractions. However, over the course of the past two weeks, the Japanese agent had discovered that Duo's presence really didn't interfere much with his work, instead, he found his absence jarring. Heero had trouble remaining focused, with that empty chair across from him. It was unsettling and that restlessness was reflected during the nights as well.

Thankfully, his co-captain was on his way back – his shuttle was scheduled to land on L1 in less than an hour – and once he was back, everything could return to normal.

Heero liked normal. He liked routine. It was easy. It was easy like running.

He booted up his laptop and got to work. He revised his mission report for F-177 after it was sent back to him by Major Kurasawa, their direct superior, who oversaw the L1 office. The mission report had been deemed incomplete and Heero wasn't surprised. He always relied on Duo to help him be as detailed as possible in his descriptions. The debriefing had been a nightmare too. In his defense, debriefings and mission reports had never been part of his training – Doctor J didn't need to know how or why he did any of the things he did, as long as the mission was completed.

It had been his first solo mission since he started working at the agency and it was disconcerting to realize how co-dependent he had become to be able to perform at this job.

The efficiency of his work was hindered by how often he caught himself checking the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen.

His phone, placed exactly perpendicular to his laptop, lit up and he couldn't keep his gaze from darting to the text on the lock-screen.

_**Duo Maxwell:**_

_**Guess who's baaaaack?**_

He reached for his phone, even though he shouldn't interrupt his work to answer a non-priority text message. He typed: **Will you be at the office before 4:30?**

_**Was gonna skip the rest of the day and crash at home.**_

_**Why?**_

**My mission report is due at 4:30.**

_**Didn't you hand that in yesterday?**_

Heero pursed his lips. **I did. He sent it back. "Incomplete" he wrote.**

_**I won't be of much help. I wasn't there, you know?**_

He was very well aware. It had been an adjustment and one that he didn't enjoy. Heero didn't like adjustments anyway, but that one least of all. He had gotten accustomed to working missions with Duo and writing the mission report together. **I know. But you always know what Kurasawa is going to ask. **

At first the only thing he received in return was one of those silly smiley faces; this particular one had his eyes closed and a blush on his cheeks. Duo knew better than to try to communicate with him through emoji's. Heero had trouble reading actual, human faces, let alone interpreting such infantile caricatures.

_**I'll be at the office at 4.**_

_**Hang in there. Help is on the way!**_

Then Duo added another one of those yellow faces and Heero didn't even bother to identify which one it was. They were all equally meaningless to him.

He further improved his mission report to the best of his abilities, forcing himself to add details that he felt were redundant. He was startled by a knock on the door.

"Yes?"

Cho appeared in the doorway. "Sir, we have finished the analysis for F-177 and we'd like to go over the recovered data with you."

He shot a look back at his computer screen. He preferred to keep working in solitude, even if the mission report was a nuisance, but Duo hadn't returned yet to step in, so the responsibility was Heero's. "Yes, of course."

He followed her to one of the conference rooms where she and Beck had set up their computers and used the projector to present their findings. They had cracked the encryption code on the hard drive that Heero had confiscated, following the clandestine arrest of two L2 smugglers. Heero could have deciphered it in half the time it had taken Beck and Cho, but F-177 wasn't a priority case and Major Kurasawa had ordered him to delegate the work load so he could write the mission report and brief the interrogating officer on the information they had gathered prior to the arrest, as well as sit in on the interrogations.

The data on the hard drive specified several smuggling routes and identified a small fleet's worth of shuttles used in the larger, criminal organization that the two men he had arrested were part of, which linked them to an existing Preventer case, as suspected.

At his command, Beck and Cho relayed the information to the investigative team in charge of case file Ct-245, a case Kurasawa was personally in charge of and would be taking with him when he transferred to HQ in two weeks.

His headache had swelled listening to the two of them explain their basic encoding procedures to him, like he wasn't widely acknowledged as the most skilled hacker in the agency. He realized he had forgotten to take his Advil and he was relieved when the presentation was done and he could return to the privacy of his office to have a cup of coffee and a painkiller.

With a quick pace he made his way through the hall, to his office.

Heero pushed the door to the office open and was met with a familiar face, sporting a smug grin he had seen more often than he liked.

Duo sat in his own desk chair – finally it wasn't empty anymore – with his feet propped up onto the desk; his dirty boots staining a manila folder. He tilted his head to let his sunglasses slip down to the tip of his nose and he peered at his co-captain with mischievous eyes. "Did ya miss me?"

Heero considered lying, but he decided against it. "Yes."

"Really?" The American was as perplexed as he ought to be at the admission.

"I need you to help me with my mission report."

"Ri~ght," he drawled and just smirked at him. He pulled his feet off the desk and straightened up. He took off his sunglasses and tossed them on top of the duffel bag that was on the floor. He jumped up from his seat and directed Heero to sit down at his laptop.

"I'm gonna get us both some coffee," Duo announced, "and then I'll help you fill in the blanks on the report, yeah?" Once Heero had seated himself Duo put his hands on his shoulders. "Or would you rather have tea?"

"Coffee."

"Coming right up. Loosen up." He gave his shoulders a firm squeeze before letting go and heading for the door. "We still have twenty minutes, plenty of time to get your report up to snuff for Major K."

Heero nodded and watched him leave for the coffee machine down the hall. Maybe he should have asked him to bring him a cup of water and an Advil too, but his headache had already gone.

His partner was quick to return. Duo dragged his chair around the desks to sit next to Heero. He made himself comfortable, sipped his coffee and asked questions about the mission so he could help compile an accurate report. Duo had a lot more patience for getting into the minute details that Heero preferred to dismiss as irrelevant. The details weren't irrelevant, not when the case went to court. Heero struggled to adjust to that; during the war, he didn't have to worry about the legal proceedings. But peace-time was different. Even little things mattered if they wanted to achieve justice.

They finished in fifteen minutes and Heero emailed the updated version to Kurasawa.

"So, how did it go with the kids?" Duo inquired, now that their work was done and he decided they should catch up.

Heero knew by then he was referring to the team when he said "kids" – it had been confusing in the beginning. "Fine."

Duo let out a hearty laugh.

"Beck couldn't complete the twelve mile run."

"No worries. We'll whip him into shape before The Twelve."

"They need to be ready for more than just an annual test, Duo."

"They're not going out in the field anytime soon anyway," he countered with a wink, "my co-captain thinks they aren't ready."

"Your co-captain is right."

"He usually is," Duo replied smartly and he finished the last of his coffee, not caring that the drink had gone cold.

"When is WuFei flying in?"

Duo grimaced. "I just spent two weeks with the guy, do we really have to talk about him?" Correctly reading his partner's look, he answered in defeat: "He needs a few more days to wrap up his work at the Academy. He'll be here next week."

"You sound thrilled." Duo was about the only person who Heero could read – a little – because he was so overtly animated. When his tone was flat like that, Heero knew he wasn't excited.

"I got a taste of what it's going to be like to work with him. No, I'm not thrilled," he deadpanned.

"Not 'work with him'. Work _under_ him."

The other agent let out an exaggerated groan. "Don't remind me."

WuFei was being promoted to Major and with Kurasawa's transfer in mind, he had been assigned to take over control at the L1 office. "You were offered the position first. You turned it down."

"Yeah, well maybe I wouldn't have if I had known they'd call in Captain Rule-Book."

"Major Rule-Book," Heero corrected offhandedly.

"Oh God, what have I done?!" He exclaimed dramatically and then shook his head at himself. "Nah, who am I kidding. I still wouldn't have wanted that job. If that job means Major K is a glimpse into my future, I say: thanks, but no thanks."

"Kurasawa is a respectable man."

"Exactly," the American grinned and mouthed: "boring".

The door opened without a knock and the Major leaned into the room. He never knocked. "Yuy, thank you for updating the report in a timely manner."

"Of course, sir. Does it meet your requirements?"

"It does. Beck and Cho briefed me on the intel recovered from the hard drive, it could prove to be pivotal in the Ct-245 case. Thank you for taking on F-177, even though your team was incomplete," he nodded at Duo who had been missing for the action, "Duo, good to have you back."

"Thank you for lying, sir. You are too kind," Duo shot back glibly. Everyone in the office joked that Kurasawa had aged ten years since Duo was assigned to the L1 office. He was an excellent agent – his performance second only to Heero's - but he had his own way of interacting with authority figures and testing their limits.

"You're welcome. I was notified Major Chang will arrive next week. I look forward to handing you over to him."

"I understand, sir. No hard feelings."

"Hn." He offered them both a curt nod as a way of saying goodbye and then stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Heero shot Duo a confused look when the man started giggling uncontrollably.

"I just realized," Duo managed between laughs, "Kurasawa is a glimpse into _your_ future! And it is sca-ry."

Heero felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth and he didn't stop it from happening because Duo had made him promise he never would again. He wasn't comfortable showing his emotions, but at least there wasn't much that could make him smile, so he didn't have to worry too much about it. Besides, whenever something did manage to draw a smile to his lips, he was always alone with Duo and he knew he was safe. Duo wouldn't use his emotions against him, or punish him for them.

Duo stopped laughing and focused on Heero's features. "I missed you, ya know?"

The Japanese agent swallowed and looked away.

Duo chuckled and patted his knee. "I know, I know." He pushed his chair back to his own desk. "I guess since I'm here anyway, I might as well get some work done."

They worked in quiet until six thirty. Even though the team had continued to handle cases and update the administrative work, Duo's responsibilities had been piling up for two weeks and he had a lot to catch up on. Usually, he cut out at six, like the rest of the team, but he stuck around and worked until he noticed Heero boot down his laptop.

"Ready?"

Heero rubbed his eyes. "Hmhm."

"Don't tell me you're tired," he bantered and added a wink.

"No. I'm fine."

They both grabbed their car keys and Duo stored his Preventer-issues handgun in the lockbox in his drawer. "Maybe you should take some work home with you," Heero suggested. Duo still had a big pile to work his way through, it would be wise to get a head start.

"I really don't plan on working tonight."

"Hn." Heero fiddled with his keys, waiting as Duo slipped on his leather jacket.

"Let's go." Duo led the way through the hallway to the elevator, along the way saying goodnight to the few co-workers that were still in their cubicle. Everyone seemed happy to see Duo had returned. He was universally liked.

They stood shoulder to shoulder in the elevator after Duo had pressed the button for the underground parking garage.

"Hold the elevator!" Someone called and Duo inserted his hand between the automatic door, prompting them to open back up. An agent that Heero recognized as the communications liaison of Team Three joined them in the small space. She nodded at Heero and flashed Duo a pretty smile. "Thanks."

"No problem."

The doors closed and the next twelve seconds Heero had to listen to their rushed exchange as the woman asked Duo about his stay on Earth, at the Academy – apparently she had family there. She was talking a mile a minute. Duo had mentioned her to Heero before; he said she had a crush on him. Heero had no idea how Duo could come to that conclusion with such certainty - she talked a lot, but she talked a lot to everyone, with Heero being the obvious exception, of course - but he had no reason to doubt his partner's observation.

When they reached the underground parking garage, each headed for their own car. Duo and Heero had been allocating neighboring parking spots close to the elevator, whereas the other agent was parked somewhere in the back. She waved goodbye and walked off, disappearing between the rows of cars. Two other agents were standing by their cars, talking and only paused their conversation to greet her and halfheartedly wave at Duo and Heero.

Their two cars were identical black SUV's; a company car was one of the advantages of being named captain.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Heero said.

Duo grinned. "Bright eyed and bushy tailed. I miss you already." He saluted him and then climbed into his vehicle. Duo sped off.

Before driving home Heero checked his email on his phone after the screen had lit up with a notification. Realizing it was work related but not an emergency, he pocketed his phone and drove away.

It was a short commute. Everything was a short commute on the colonies, even on L1, despite it being the biggest. Traffic jams were kept under control and exhaust fumes were regulated by not allowing every citizen to drive a car. Only a few professions warranted the use of a motorized vehicle. Everyone else used the elaborate, underground metro system, which was offered to the inhabitants free of charge to enable everyone's mobility.

Heero was grateful that he did have a car. The car was easy. He didn't like the underground trains; relinquishing control without a readily available exit strategy set off all kinds of alarm bells and he got so tense he couldn't function.

The white, modern house was quietly located, in as green a neighborhood as could be expected on a man-made colony in space. The footprints of the houses on the street were small, to make the best use of the available square footage, but with four floors, it was plenty spacious. The kitchen and dining room were on the ground floor, but a metal staircase on the outside of the house led up to the front door on the first floor, which was the living room. On the floor above there was a bathroom and two small bedrooms that had been converted into a gym and a home office. The bedroom with a small ensuite bathroom was on the top floor. Every room felt bigger than it was thanks to the big windows; they were mirrored on the outside, so the neighbors couldn't look in.

Heero pulled up and parked his car on the driveway, behind the other car. His phone beeped again, another non-emergent work email. It appeared Cho was working late. Heero knew it was wrong, but she was his favorite of the group. She was reliable and dedicated. However, she did need a lot of instructions, she wasn't a good independent worker. He quickly typed his reply:

**Go home. This can wait until tomorrow.**

It wasn't like him to tell someone to drop their work, but he knew she'd be contacting him all evening otherwise and he didn't want to get dragged into working that night. He switched his phone to silent and climbed out of his car and headed up the stairs.

He closed the front door behind him and listened to the music that played. He shrugged his Preventer jacket off his shoulders and hung it from the hook by the door and then he put away the leather jacket that had been strewn across the couch. Heero liked the house clean and organized, although maybe not quite as clean and organized as it had been for the past two weeks; it had looked like no one was even living there.

Footsteps came rushing down the stairs. "Already cleaning up after me," a boisterous voice said.

Heero turned and another small smile appeared on his lips. "Welcome home."

Duo closed the distance between them and crashed his mouth against Heero's. He wrapped his arms around his smaller body and lifted him up, holding him tightly against him. Their tongues sparred and Duo nipped at Heero's bottom lip. He was being more rough and sloppy than he usually was and the kiss was almost painful but Heero wanted more of it regardless. Duo lowered Heero back down until his feet were firmly planted on the floor again, freeing his hand to roam across his back and tug on his wild hair.

"Longest two weeks and two and a half hours of my life," the American muttered. He rained kisses along Heero's jaw and sucked on a sensitive spot on his neck before changing his mind and capturing the other's mouth again in a kiss that was getting no less needy. The opposite, in fact. "Wanted to kiss you at the office _so bad_."

"We can't," Heero breathed.

"I know. Fuck, I know." He forced his tongue into Heero's mouth, exploring it and reclaiming it as his own. "Wanna fuck you. Gonna fuck you so hard."

Heero could only moan in response. He didn't feel like himself whenever Duo touched him like that, kissed him like that, and talked to him like that. He wasn't himself and it was so liberating. It was so easy to let go of his control and let Duo overwhelm him. It was so easy.

The American agent pulled his own shirt off over his head and then got to work on the buttons of Heero's shirt. Heero helped, knowing that if it took too long, Duo would get patient and he'd pop the buttons ripping the shirt off him. The cuff caught on the watch on his left wrist and Duo chuckled before freeing his hand and letting the moss green fabric drop to the floor.

However, the smile melted off his face when his gaze traveled down Heero's exposed torso and something dark and scared appeared in his eyes. He reached out his hands, placing the left on the small of Heero's back, pulling him closer and holding him in place, while the fingers of his right hand carefully traced a scar that was still red and sensitive. "This is new," Duo observed, his voice was low and dangerous.

Heero looked down at the jagged scar under the lowest rib on the right side. He had forgotten all about it, like he always forgot about his scars. His skin was riddled with them and soon the new mark would blend in with the rest once the redness had faded and all that remained was a raised line. Maybe that one would be a little uglier than the rest, because it had been stitched so poorly, but Heero didn't care about ugly.

"You said there hadn't been any problems during the mission," Duo accused.

The whine that escaped him was so pathetic that it made him blush with embarrassment. He clawed at Duo's broad shoulders. He didn't want him to stop; he didn't want to talk. "It's fine."

"It's not fine!" Unknowingly Duo pressed his thumb into Heero's side, aggravating the newly healed wound. Heero tried, but couldn't stop himself from wincing in response; he didn't want to see that guilty expression on his partner's face. Duo relocated his hand to cup Heero's chin. He whispered: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it's not fine."

"It's only a shallow cut."

"But they hurt you…"

"The second guy got the jump on me. According to the intel there'd be only one. I disarmed him easily enough."

"You shouldn't have gone on a mission alone," he lightly berated him. "Why did you leave this out of your mission report?"

"It's nothing…"

"And did you stitch this yourself?" Duo snorted at himself. "Obviously. This is classic Yuy-stitch-work." He pointedly looked at his own bicep where he had been grazed by a bullet during the war and Heero had been tasked to stitch the wound. The old scar was just as ugly as the new scar under Heero's ribs.

The Japanese man pinched his eyebrows together. He didn't like talking about the war. Talking about it invigorated the memories and made it seem like it was yesterday, like it was that morning, like it was that afternoon and like it would be tomorrow. His aged scars were the only things that could remind him how long ago in the past it all was.

The newest scar was five days old. Heero squeezed his eyes shut._ It was five days ago. It's not here. It's not now. _The groaning of the exhausted metal shell of the shuttle that he heard wasn't real. The stench of sweat from the bunk beds wasn't real. The warmth of blood on his hands wasn't real.

He pushed Duo's hand off his chin and collided their mouths in a desperate kiss. He knew how to coax his tongue out to take control. He knew how to drive Duo wild and to get him to give him what he needed. Two big hands grabbed his ass and lifted Heero up. He locked his arms around Duo's neck and let himself be carried to the couch. He was laid on top of the backrest, it was wide enough and soft enough for him to lay securely and comfortably. He'd been fucked there many times before; on the backrest or bent over it.

Duo stripped him of his shoes, socks, pants and underwear. He spit into his hand and then enveloped Heero's erection. The skin of his palm was rough, like Heero's own, calloused hands, but the saliva made it slick enough to wring cries from him as the fist pumped up and down. With his other hand Duo unbuttoned his jeans and he spat directly onto his erect cock. He spread it over his own length and spat again.

"Please, please, please…" Heero wasn't himself anymore and it was amazing. His calves were maneuvered up over Duo's shoulders. He used to get self-conscious about how exposed he was to Duo when the man first had sex with him, but he had let go of that, knowing of the rewards. He groaned like an animal when he felt the head of Duo's manhood press against his opening. He grasped at the cushions of the couch and gritted his teeth while he was stretched open by the thick shaft going into him. It hurt. He knew it would hurt less if he'd let Duo prepare him and get the lube from their bedroom upstairs, but the pain was part of his pleasure. The pain replaced the dull throb of the new scar. He knew he would feel it the rest of the day and tomorrow as well, but that was exactly what he needed. Pain anchored him. The pain made Duo real. The pain made his new life real. The pain made peace real. It was the only pain he knew outside of the war, outside of missions, and he needed it for balance. Sometimes, he wished Duo would scar him, or bruise him, so he couldn't only feel it, but see it too.

Duo's thrusts were deep and powerful. As he pounded into him, the swollen crown stroked past his prostate and the sensitive bundle of nerves was set alight. The stretch, the fullness, the friction and the stimulation of his sweet spot all worked together to make him see stars. The pleasure blanketed the pain. Duo's fist was still on him, but he only held him tightly at the base, squeezing to remind Heero to stay his orgasm.

Sex with Duo offered him such relief from _himself_ that he could come in a matter of minutes, but he knew it was better to make it last as long as they could both bear.

"Fuck… Nnnn. Oh, God." He could never stay quiet during sex. In the silence he could think, and he didn't want to think. "Harder, Duo! Faster!"

The man obliged with a feral growl. The fingers of his left hand dug into Heero's thigh, into an old bullet wound that he had personally been the cause of. "You fucking love being fucked open."

It was a truth he was well aware of, but to have Duo snarl it at him unraveled his mind further. He curled his toes and bucked his hips involuntarily, moaning as he thrust himself into the tunnel of Duo's hand. "Make me come, please! I can't stand it any longer! Ah!" Mercifully, his partner jerked him off. His hand was rough, no longer slippery with saliva, but it was exactly what Heero needed. Before long he was overcome by his own orgasm and he felt streaks of his semen land on his chest and abdomen as the first contractions of his climax were powerful; the rest of his come leaked out over Duo's hand, making his fingers slick again and the touch less course while he milked the hypersensitive penis.

Once he had eased him through his release, Duo gripped both Heero's thighs, hard enough to hurt, and he thrusted into him erratically until he achieved his own climax. He called Heero's name before biting into his calf.

Heero was barely aware of any of it. His entire body was relaxed, the way it only was right after sex. His eyes were closed and he saw nothing; no flashes of unwanted memories. He didn't know how much time had passed when he heard Duo's breathy chuckle and finally cracked his blue eyes open.

"I missed you."

He considered lying again. But he was a horrible liar, especially when he was so sated. "I missed you too."

Duo kissed the bite mark he had left on Heero's calf and then pulled out and helped Heero sit up. "Can you get up? Otherwise my come is going to leak out onto the couch." His grin was entirely too self-satisfied.

"Hn." Heero got up on unsteady legs and just in time too, as he felt something wet trailed down the inside of his thigh. He looked over his shoulder and checked the couch, but other than his sweaty imprint on the leather, it had been spared.

They went upstairs and showered together and Duo started fretting over the scar again, ruining Heero's buzz, but at least he had the pain in his backside to remind him that he was home and not stowed away on a smuggler's rickety shuttle, waiting to ambush the pilot. They ordered in Chinese and ate it seated on the floor at the coffee table. Duo switched on the TV and picked something for them to watch. He would have asked Heero what he wanted to see, but he knew Heero would have no opinion on the matter. Afterwards they both drank two beers while Duo recapped his two weeks on Earth with colorful terms. Heero didn't have much to say about his two weeks alone. Duo already knew more about mission F-177 than he should and Heero didn't feel like talking about the team giving him attitude – it was nothing Duo wasn't already aware of anyway – nor his evenings alone at home, when he'd turn on the TV, with no intention of watching anything, just to drown out the quiet once in a while.

With Duo around, there was never silence and he had grown comfortable with that.

Duo was tired and he wanted to go to bed early. Heero followed him upstairs to join him in bed. As they lay side by side under the blankets, in only their underwear, Duo's hands started to wander. He pulled Heero against him and sweet kissed turned hungry. He wasn't too tired to make out and masturbate together, while reminding Heero over and over how much he had missed him.

Afterwards, Heero lay on his side, with Duo spooning behind him, his big arms possessively clutched around him and his nose pressed into the hair at the nape of his neck. Duo's breathing was evening out as he started to fall asleep. Heero should be tired too, but he wasn't, he was restless. He felt like tossing and turning, flinging his arms and moving his legs, but he couldn't, not in Duo's embrace. He stared at the clock and waited for Duo to fall into a deep enough sleep that he could extricate himself from his hold without waking him. Duo didn't like it when he wasn't in his arms and he didn't want to deny the man the peaceful sleep.

They weren't a couple. Heero didn't know what they were exactly, but there weren't a couple. Even though they had sex – and had been having sex for the past two years. Even though they were living together – and had been living together for the past eight months.

The sex, they had agreed early on, was just a necessary physical relief. They could get it with someone else, but it wasn't quite as good, nor quite as _thorough_. Neither could fully let go while being intimate with someone else; neither could let go of that alertness and distrust that had kept them alive in the past. They only trusted each other and they knew they were safe together. Heero confessed that his distrust had kept him from ever having sex with anyone else before and Duo said he wished he could say the same – Heero didn't quite understand that.

They were a good fit, sexually: Duo liked being rough and Heero liked getting roughed up.

Them living together had evolved more gradually. When they moved to L1, after both spending some time apart – Heero on earth and Duo on L2 – Duo bought the house with money he had saved up while Heero got a lease on a studio apartment closer to the office. It was small, but he didn't need much space. He only needed a bed, a shower and a kitchen. But when they had sex, it was common for them to sleep over. When they had sex more often, Heero spent more time at Duo's house than at his own apartment, until at one point they both realized sheepishly that Heero hadn't been home in three weeks. Heero went back to his apartment and they spent that night apart. In the morning, at the office, Duo cornered him and said simply, with a low tone: "I didn't like it". Neither had Heero, but he didn't admit it. After work, he went to his apartment, packed a duffel bag, and he went _home_. His home was with Duo. He couldn't explain it, but it was what it was.

Living with Duo was easy. Heero felt safer and more at ease, sharing a home with the other former Gundam pilot and second-best Preventer agent. Two pairs of eyes and ears were better than one. Sometimes, the Japanese agent allowed himself to let his guard down, trusting Duo to have his back.

Duo chased away the silence.

Duo released him of himself.

Duo anchored him to the present.

What he did in return to pay him back, he wasn't entirely sure, but he did let Duo hold him while he slept, even though being together in the middle of the bed meant they were both further away from their handguns in the holsters taped to the underside of either bedside table.

Hoping that Duo had slipped away into unconsciousness far enough to not notice Heero disentangling himself, Heero grabbed the other man's wrists and worked his arms open so he could roll out of his embrace. He was seated on the edge of the bed, about to get up, when fingers grazed the small of his back and hooked into the waistband of his underwear.

"Even tonight?" He asked brusquely.

Heero looked over his shoulder at Duo's face. The man had his eyes closed, too tired to open them. "Every night," he reminded him. The urge to apologize came and went. He checked the clock again. It was still early, he should just get it over with and then he could catch several hours of sleep before the alarm would go off at six am. It was scheduled to rain in half an hour, but he didn't mind.

Duo pulled his fingers out of Heero's underwear and retreated his hands. "Wake me when you get back, okay?"

"Hmhm." He got up from the bed and fetched his running gear from the closet and he tiptoed down the stairs. In the living room he got dressed in his skintight shorts, a tank top and a hoodie and he laced up his running shoes.

The atmosphere outside was warm and clammy in preparation of the rain. He pulled up his hood and headed down the street.

He didn't just run, he sprinted. He sprinted as hard as he could, for as long as he could. His legs and arms became sore from the exertion and with every greedy intake of breath his lungs hurt. He didn't think about anything other than the pain and he focused on the sounds of his own harsh breaths.

The rain started to fall, precisely on schedule. The heavy downpour quickly soaked through his hoodie and he knew he'd get cold later but he couldn't stop yet. If he wanted to be able to sleep, he had to utterly exhaust his body. Unless he completely drained his body of energy, he couldn't stop himself from reacting to every small sound – even the sounds that he knew were in his head only, like the creaking of metal as it warped around him and distant explosions.

When he felt he was reaching a point where his body could collapse from exhaustion, he started heading back. His pace gradually slowed down and he had to fight against his own body, against his cramping muscles and the sharp pain in his side, to keep it moving forward. By the time he arrived back at the house, he couldn't even climb the stairs up to the front door. He doubled over and let himself drop down into the small grass lawn out front. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, to let his lungs stop burning and wait until he had control over his own legs again. He didn't know how long he had been gone, but it was long enough and if he didn't want to pass out in the front yard, he knew he had to head inside and go to bed.

He climbed up the stairs clutching at the bannisters and practically hoisting himself up the last few steps to the bedroom on the top floor. He was wet from the rain and his own sweat, but he was too tired to shower. He stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed.

Duo lay on his back, fast asleep and Heero positioned himself close to him and rested his heavy head on his bare chest.

The taller man woke up with a groan and reactively he encircled Heero with his arm. "Hey."

"…Hey," he breathed against his chest.

"Tired?"

"Hmhm." He sighed pleasantly when fingers delved into his wet hair.

"You're cold and wet," Duo pointed out, his voice laced with concern.

He tried to push himself up and get away from Duo so he wouldn't have to deal with a wet mop of hair on his chest, but he honestly couldn't move.

"Go to sleep, Heero. It's okay."

"Hnn."

"Want me to tell you something boring?"

Heero could feel Duo's smile as he pressed his lips against his forehead. "Please."

The man told him about meaningless gossip that he had picked up during his stay on Earth and his struggles with the coffee-machine in the teachers' lounge at the Academy. He rambled on in a flat tone, leaving out his usual, story-telling flourishes. The chest that Heero's head rested on vibrated as Duo produced his deep voice.

His head became heavier and heavier and it was like he was sinking into Duo's body. He fell asleep while Duo continued to idly speak to him.

* * *

**TBC…**

* * *

**Some things you should know about this story:**

**1\. This story will feature switching POV's, alternating between Duo and Heero **

**2\. This story will not be as lemon-filled as this first chapter implies**

**3\. Chapter length will vary widely**

**4\. It is as cannon as it can be, considering the author hasn't viewed the original material (in full, at least) in nearly a decade.**

**Thank you for giving this first chapter a shot. Let me know if you're on board. **


	2. Chapter 2

**This took longer than expected. I'm quite a bit ahead on rereading the story in preparation of completing it, when I ran into something that made me realize I had to go back **_**again**_** to edit some details. It took me a bit to motivate myself to do that, but the incredibly positive response to the first chapter certainly helped. **

**I'm so glad I haven't outstayed my welcome yet as an author in this fandom and I actually have something pretty exciting coming up (I'm excited about it, doesn't mean you will be too, but I do hope so). You'll see that pop-up sometime this week.**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part II – Duo's POV**

Their alarm clocks went off at six am and they each rolled to opposite sides of the bed to end the shrill beeps. Duo groaned and blinked up at the ceiling. One of the few advantages of his two weeks of teaching seminars on Explosive Diffusions was getting up at eight because the theoretical classes didn't start until ten, after the recruits had already completed a two-hour morning exercise. He could get used to those two extra hours every morning, although he'd be lying if he claimed he slept much while he was away. He didn't like his bed to be empty anymore.

He reached out his hand, but couldn't quite touch the small of Heero's back as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Heero had no trouble getting up. He stood up, popped his joints and then headed for the bathroom.

Duo listened to him take a leak, then wash his hands, then get into the shower. He used the couple of minutes to let his brain fully wake up.

When his partner emerged from the bathroom, it was Duo's turn. He had showered the night before and didn't go for a midnight run the way Heero did every night, so he was only tasked with shaving, brushing his teeth and managing his long hair.

By the time he joined Heero downstairs in the kitchen, there was a simple breakfast and coffee waiting for him. Duo stood at the counter – Heero sat on one of the barstools – and took a big bite of toast that he washed down with a gulp of coffee.

Heero shifted uncomfortably on the metal seat.

Duo smirked. "Sore?"

"Hn."

Duo smirked and scrolled through the newsfeed on his phone, catching up on everything that had happened on L1 while he had been off colony. "Is Relena still scheduled to speak at PAC?" The Peace Anniversary Convention was an annual celebration of peace, following the resolution of the "Mariemea incident" – as it had become infamously known. They alternated hosting the convention on earth and on the colonies. This year, it would be on L1 for the first time.

"Yes."

"Fun. It's been a while since we were last her bodyguards."

"We don't know yet if we will be assigned to her protection detail."

"We're always on her protection detail when she comes to L1. Miss Queen-of-the-World specifically requests us."

Heero quipped: "She specifically requests _me_.-"

Duo stuck his tongue out at him. "We're a package deal and she knows it."

"-Anyway, I don't think her requests will mean much to 'Major Rule-Book'."

He scrunched up his face. He was _not_ looking forward to being bossed around by Chang!

"WuFei is in charge of the L1 office by then and I suspect he will not appoint Team One to a low priority protection detail with risk level green," Heero said offhandedly. He finished his coffee and checked his watch. "We have to go. We have a GA-127 briefing at seven thirty."

When Heero got up to leave Duo grabbed him and engaged him in a demanding kiss. He ran his hand down his back and pressed his fingers into the cleft of his ass, causing Heero to groan against his mouth. "At least think about me at the office today," Duo pleaded.

"It'll be hard not to."

Duo grinned. If a dirty little secret was all it was ever going to be, he was going to enjoy it to the fullest. However, he hadn't given up on hope for more yet.

The Japanese agent left first and Duo waited five minutes before getting into his own car and driving to the office building.

Duo was a more reckless driver than Heero and even though they didn't arrive at the same time – as they shouldn't, to avoid suspicion – Heero was still in the parking garage by the time Duo pulled up into his parking space. He locked his car and hurried to the elevator to get in with Heero and two other agents. "Good morning," he said to all of them.

"Good morning," two of them responded. Heero remained characteristically quiet.

They got off on the tenth floor and went into their office to boot up their computers and take ten minutes to reply to emails before they were called into the conference room for the briefing. Afterwards they returned to their office.

The job involved a surprising amount of paperwork. Duo suspected Heero had been as unprepared for that as he had been when they first signed up. They had been looking to make themselves useful and apply their unique skills where they were needed most. The Preventer agency seemed a logical cause to devote their time to. As Team One, they saw the most action, but strict regulations kept them out of the field more often than not. Duo had grown to like the grind, but he still needed the adrenaline high of clandestine and dangerous missions. He was excited about the team being pulled into the GA-127 case; it was a high profile case that would definitely require field work at some point.

Through undercover work, Preventer agents had uncovered that an old resource satellite, RS42, had been repurposed as a missile launch site following the end of the AC195 war, by a remaining group of mercenaries who had aligned with White Fang but had radicalized and splintered off. Investigative work continued to expose the entire network, tracking shuttle traffic and radio communications in the vicinity of RS42. Once they had gathered enough information to identify the leaders of the radical movement, arrests were in order and the satellite would have to be destroyed; that sounded like a job for Team One.

After the lunch break they headed out onto the training field with their team. It was apparent the six subservient members were relieved that Duo was back. Duo knew Heero gave them a hard time and while it wasn't undue, he understood the team's frustration. Coming out of the Academy, all six of them had stellar scores in their fields of expertise and the team's average score on The Twelve last year was the highest recorded team score; even when Heero's individual perfect scores were discounted. All six of them trained hard to become the best they could be and to earn their spot as part of Team One. Duo was sympathetic to their hunger for action and their results across the board certainly cleared them for field work. It was unfair that members of Team Five and Six, who barely passed on last year's twelve disciplines, had seen action and were more experienced agents because of it.

If Duo was the sole captain of the team, he probably would have let them tag along on missions – starting at lower risk missions and working their way up. He was more of a risk-taker, after all. But his co-captain decided they weren't ready yet. Duo didn't know how to argue with him, mostly because he knew Heero made that decision in the interest of their team's safety. Heero was never one to avoid risks when it came to his own life – quite the contrary, much to Duo's dismay – but he saw fault lines in the individuals and in the teamwork that he knew would leave them vulnerable to failure; and failure out in the field wasn't just a negative score on a test, it meant death.

Heero couldn't get it through to his thick skull that not everyone could be the perfect soldier. At some point, he would have to accept that, while not perfect, the team was _good enough_.

Duo observed the training and kept time on his stopwatch as the team performed drills and completed the obstacle course, led by Heero who was always two steps ahead physically and mentally. It was enthralling to watch his partner. Every movement of his body was so precise and calculated, but without any delay. He worked quickly and efficiently. The obstacle course – a discipline on which many agents regularly failed – was too easy for him. His body knew what to do. He mounted the ten foot wall, climbed up the net, swung on the rope across the moat, leapt over hurdles and crawled through the mud under barbed wire like it was nothing. After completing every section, he waited for the team members to catch up to him.

Duo knew the team oftentimes accused his co-captain of being selfish and arrogant, but he wasn't. He knew every single one of them could count on Heero and without them realizing it, he was the reason they were the best team on paper. They might not like him scrutinizing them and micro-managing them, but every critique helped them improve.

The entire group completed the course in a decent time and Duo complimented them.

"Beck was too slow," Heero pointed out.

Duo reset his stopwatch and lied: "No, he made it in time. He would have passed."

"No, he wouldn't have."

"Jesus, stop shitting on him," Viver spoke up.

Heero glared at her and Duo felt uncomfortable getting caught in the middle. He understood where she was coming from and he admired her standing up for her teammate, knowing full well Heero wasn't going to take her insubordination rolling over, but technically, his co-captain was right. The five of them were fast enough for a pass, but the twenty second gap between Cho's second to last finish time and Beck's meant he would have failed the obstacle course.

"I'm not shitting on him," Heero argued, "This is on you." He pointed at Viver and Grace, the two to first cross the finish line – after Heero, of course.

"How is this my fault? Or Haywire's?"

Heero scoffed at the nickname for Haytham Grace that he thought was childish, just like he thought everyone calling Luca Swafford "Swagger" was stupid. "Your scores are noted individually, but you take the test as a _team_," he emphasized.

"Yeah, but helping him out would have slowed us down and then we would have failed!" Haywire pointed out.

Duo stepped in, knowing they'd swallow it better coming from him than from Heero. "What cost Beck the most time was getting over the wall. If either of you had stayed on top to give him a hand to help him over, you would have all made it in time. Your times were fast enough that you would have passed, even with the time it would have taken to help him over."

"We couldn't have known that!"

Heero interjected: "You could have. If you train well enough that your times are consistent, you know exactly how long it takes for you to complete the course and how much time you have to spare to help a teammate. You won't get a perfect score that way, but at least you'd show the kind of team work that saves lives in the field."

"Right. In the _field_. You're never going to let us in the field!" Viver bit and Haywire rolled his eyes.

"I don't let you because in a real world situation Beck would be dead right now. You want to stand up for him, yet every time it matters you put your own ambition ahead of the team."

"Wanting to set a personal best on the obstacle course does not mean we would have let him die!"

Duo raised his hand to silence everyone. "Alright, calm the fuck down, people. Viver, Haywire, learn your lesson from this and apply it next time. It's not rocket science. Run two laps for cool-down and then hit the showers. We're done for today." He stood next to his partner and watched the other six tiredly jog along the track.

"Would you really have let them go out with us on missions if they had bothered to help Isra?" He asked when the rest was out of earshot.

Heero pinched his eyebrows together. "Of course not."

Duo let out a chuckle at the expected answer. "Why not?"

"Mister 'Haywire' scored a 63 on his Cognitive Competence test last year. Rubo scored 59 on Tactical. There are worse problems than Beck not running twelve miles and not getting over a wall by his damn self."

The American agent laughed again. "Those are still passing scores, besides, their average across The Twelve was 88 and 85 respectively. That's _high_." The two members had achieved scores in the nineties on other disciplines, excelling way ahead of everyone else. Viver scored in the high eighties on everything, while Cho, Beck and Swafford were a bit of a mixed bag, but still earned solid averages.

"Their averages were 72 and 76," Heero corrected.

Duo frowned at him. "No, they weren't. I typed up their results myself."

"Yes and you went easy on them. Rubo a 94 on FTA?" Firearms Theory and Accuracy. "And Grace a 96 on Negotiation _and_ Protocol? Are you kidding me? Besides, everyone cheats on Negotiation, that test is flawed."

Duo shook his head at him but he couldn't help but smile. He actually helped Heero cheat on Negotiation as well. Heero couldn't read facial expressions and body language for the life of him and couldn't catch anyone in a lie, but the test was the same every year, so if you memorized what to say, anyone could pass with flying colors. It was the only discipline on which Heero could not effortlessly achieve a score of 99 or 100. The other eleven disciplines were focused on things Heero – and Duo as well – had long mastered: combat, survival skills, mechanical know-how, explosives expertise, problem-solving and practically being able to recite the Preventers' Protocol.

The most important discipline was Physical Intensity and Endurance – cutely referred to as PIE: six grueling physical fitness tests. The scores on the PIE's weighed the heaviest for the overall average, because as a Preventer Academy graduate, everyone should be able to pass the other disciplines every year with relative ease; at the Academy, that knowledge was ingrained in you. The PIE's were meant to ensure agents didn't slack off on their physical fitness as the years went by.

"The point is, their real averages were more like 72 and 76. I'm not going into the field with _72_ and a _76_."

"What about Viver? Her average was 86. Or did you disagree with that as well?"

"More like 81."

"That's still in the eighties, that's good, right?"

Heero retorted dryly: "It's not in the nineties."

"Well, no one's averages are in the nineties. With us two being the sole exceptions, of course." He flashed a smug smirk. "Officially agents are cleared for active duty with a Twelve average of 75 and up."

"That's great. Let Team Four go out with a bunch of seventy-fivers." He spat the word.

Duo laughed heartedly at his co-captain disproving tone.

Their team members concluded their two laps and dragged their feet to the locker rooms.

"I think they would do pretty well in the field," Duo said, regardless of the fact that he knew Heero would disagree. "We'd be around to pick up any slack. And they'd get better over time. If we give them hands-on experience, I think they could become 'nineties', like us. In the lower nineties, but still."

"They will never be as good as you and _you're_ in the lower nineties. "

Duo mock-gasped at the insult wrapped into a compliment. "Am not! Kurasawa scored me with an average of 97, and he fucking hates my guts, I'd be a 105 otherwise," he half-joked.

"That score doesn't even exist," Heero routinely stated, not recognizing that was the joke.

Teams were scored by their captains, and Duo felt like he had been plenty critical of his teammates – certainly more so than some of the other captains, who were more forgiving with their analysis. The captains themselves performed the tests separately from their teams and were tested by the Major. Duo was not looking forward to Chang being the one to grade them next time. He trusted Chang to score everyone fairly, him as well, but he already knew he wouldn't perform as well with the Chinese pilot breathing down his neck.

"Still though: 97," he boasted.

"Eh." Heero shrugged. "What does he know? I read his files, he didn't score higher than a 79 in his last three years of active duty, with a personal best set at 84."

"Oh yeah?" Duo playfully poked him between the ribs. "So what am I, Captain Perfect-Average?"

"92," he answered way too quickly; he had definitely given it prior consideration.

"No fucking way!"

"94, tops."

Duo clutched his sides as his chest rumbled with laughter. Without being aware of it, Heero had such an amusing, dry sense of humor. He teased: "And you should have gotten a 99 on Navigation, instead of a 100!"

Heero's jaw dropped at the idea, taking it as a grave insult, because that one extra 99 instead of a 100 would have lowered his perfect average by one point and he couldn't stand the thought.

"You were off by one coordinate," Duo reminded him.

"Margin of error!"

He laughed even harder.

"It's not funny," Heero practically pouted.

"Okay. Okay. I take it back. You deserved that 100."

"I did. I deserved it on explosives expertise too."

"Hey, that was my only perfect score. Give me that one, at least."

They continued their back and forth as they headed for the locker rooms, where the four men were seated on two of the benches, with wet hair and towels around their waists. They had been talking but as always a quiet settled into the room as Heero walked in. None of them had quite the pair of balls on them that Havana Viver had.

Duo didn't need to shower, having done nothing but observe and keep the time. His locker was next to Heero's, on the other side of the first bank of lockers in the room. Heero headed for the showers with a towel and a change of clothes and Duo took his time changing out of his sweats and Preventer-hoodie into his uniform. When the water started running and the other men knew Heero wouldn't overhear their conversation, they felt it was safe to talk again. They didn't care about Duo listening; he never gave them any shit about gossiping and lingering in the locker rooms too long after practice.

They started right where they had left off when Rubo wondered: "But why was she grounded?"

The captain took a seat on the bench and listened to them while he put on socks and tied his shoes.

"Are you even sure she was grounded?" Haywire doubted. "Isn't that just the rumor of the day?"

"No, it's true," Beck chimed in – always wanting to be one of the boys. "I checked."

Duo smirked. To verify if someone had been grounded, Beck would have had to check the personnel data base and that went against strict privacy regulations. He didn't mind much though, Duo and Heero's true identities – their actual age and their past as Gundam Pilots – were well hidden and Duo wasn't such a stickler for the rules anyway, but he understood why they hadn't wanted Heero to overhear.

"But why?" Rubo stressed.

"Turns out she's been doing the nasty with Byrns," Swagger said, his voice dripping with inappropriate sexual undertones.

"No fucking way!"

Duo straightened up as he buttoned his shirt. A frown appeared on his face at mention of agent Byrns, Team Two's top marksman. An active agent would only get grounded for engaging in a sexual relationship with another agent if the two of them were on the same team and the only 'she' on Team Two was…

He shot up from the bench and rounded the corner. "Are you talking about Jessica Stieber?"

The foursome looked a little uncomfortable at their captain's sudden interest in their exchange. Haywire was the one to reply: "Yeah."

"She got grounded?" Duo couldn't help but feel sorry for the agent. She was Team Two's explosive expert and she had made some impressive saves out in the field, he knew. To be grounded meant having your status as active field agent revoked immediately and it was considered one of the more severe disciplinary actions, considering all agents were basically addicted to the adrenaline high of the missions. She wouldn't be allowed back into the field with Byrns, because of a conflict of interest with the Priority of Life rule.

Two agents could not be counted on to follow protocol and act in the best interest of the entire team and protect involved citizens above anyone else when they were romantically involved – and being sexually involved was compounded with that. Stieber would either never see active duty again, or she'd have to switch teams, but each team was put together with the utmost care, taking expertise and personality types into account, so a switch was hardly ever feasible. Most likely she'd end up getting replaced with a new recruit deemed to be a good fit for Team Two and she'd be stuck behind a desk the rest of her career lest she transfers to a different satellite office. It was the fate that had befallen two other agents in the two years Heero and Duo had been working out of the L1 one office.

It was the exact reason why he and Heero knew they had to be so careful with regards to their relationship.

Swagger chuckled at Duo's forlorn expression, mistaking it to mean something that it didn't. "I felt the same way when I found out Byrns had been boning that grade A piece of ass. I mean Jesus, that girl does her squats like it's a religion! She should've let me fuck her; she'd be plowed better and she'd still have her job."

Duo knew better than to take offense at the typical locker-room-talk.

"Why didn't they ground Byrns instead of her though?" Beck wondered innocently.

"Byrns can shoot a one dollar bill from a mile away with a standard Kate and get George Washington between the eyes every time," Haywire replied. "They're not gonna ground a marksman like that."

"It just doesn't seem fair," Beck muttered. "Jessica is really good at what she does."

"She is," Duo agreed. "It's a shame that she's been grounded."

"It's her own damn fault," Swagger said, "Should've kept her legs closed. As if we aren't all tempted, but we know better and she should have known better too. Not gonna pretend I don't think about Viv and melting that frigid ass, but I know to take my hard-on to a bar and shove it up some random chick, where it belongs."

"That's enough!" Duo bellowed and the four of them looked at him in shock. He hardly ever let them see him angry. Whenever he did, he knew it intimated them, as it should. "I know Heero's the hard-ass and I'm the 'cool mom', but don't mistakenly think it is ever okay to disrespect your teammates in front of me."

"Sorry, Sir." They rarely called him 'Sir'.

The water stopped running and they hurried to finish getting dressed so they could leave the locker room before Heero emerged from the showers.

Duo walked back to his locker and further buttoned-up his shirt.

"Everything okay?" Heero asked, as he walked back fully dressed but barefoot. "I heard you yelling."

"It was nothing."

Heero sat down to put on his shoes.

He wasn't sure if he should tell his partner about Stieber, considering how similar – and how similarly risky – their own situation was, but he knew it was better to tell him in private than have him be caught off guard hearing the information from someone else later in the day. "Stieber got grounded."

"Why?"

"Her and Byrns," he simply said.

"Oh." He finished lacing up his shoes and stuffed his laundry bag into his locker.

"Oh? That's all?"

Heero shrugged. "It's a waste. She's good."

Duo nodded. "Yeah."

"Is something wrong?" Heero inquired, looking at Duo for the first time since walking up and trying his best to pick up on the clues in Duo's expression and his body language.

Duo offered him a half-hearted smile. "Fine."

Heero blinked. He paused in thought before he said: "When I tell you I'm 'fine', you always say that it means 'not fine'. And you're always right."

He smiled sadly.

"Does your 'fine' also mean 'not fine'?"

"I don't know. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Us."

Heero visibly stiffened.

"If they find out about us, I'm gonna get grounded just like Stieber."

Heero shook his head. "You don't have to worry about that."

"I know. We're careful. I know. But I bet Stieber and Byrns thought the same thing."

"No, not because of that," the Japanese agent elaborated, "If they ever find out, I'd be the one to get grounded."

Duo snorted. "Yeah, right. Mister Perfect-Average."

"If we were merely agents, my superior scores would mean you'd get grounded instead of me, but we are captains and how well we perform on The Twelve and on missions is secondary to how well we can lead our team. You are clearly the better team captain, you could lead the team without me, not vice versa. Ergo, I'd be grounded," he analyzed coldly.

Duo couldn't argue with the logic, but that didn't make him feel any better. He didn't want to do this job without Heero, especially knowing the other agent would be miserable chained to a desk. "And then what would happen?"

"You'd stay captain of Team One and I'd file for a transfer."

He liked that possibility even less because it meant they would be far apart. He also didn't like how casually Heero said it, like it wouldn't be a big deal. Duo knew Heero didn't think of them as a couple, but he loved him and Heero, in turn, cared about Duo, he was convinced of that, so he would hope not to be so easily dismissed.

"Come on, we're still on the clock."

They went back upstairs and continued their workday. Later that afternoon, news about Stieber and Byrns spread throughout the office like wildfire and for a few days the office reminded Duo of those high schools he and Heero enrolled in during the war as part of their covers.

Eventually, everyone settled down, until there was someone new to gossip about:

Major WuFei Chang.

_Major Pain-in-my-Ass_, Duo thought to himself.

A mere hour after first landing on L1 he walked into the office for his first face-to-face meeting with Kurasawa. Duo watched him stride in from across the bullpen. He had been seated on the corner of Ming-Na's desk trying to figure out coded schematics a Preventer undercover agent had seized for the GA-127 case. He'd made eye contact with the other former Gundam Pilot and raised his hand in a wave only to be completely ignored by his new superior.

Him and WuFei didn't get along well. Duo had figured that out during the war and he had hoped they had both evolved past it, but those two weeks at the Academy on Earth proved they still had only one thing in common: stubbornness. Their personalities and approach to work clashed explosively.

Duo had disdain for authority figures, he didn't believe in rank and didn't enforce it and the only way for him to not end up breaking a rule was to bend it out of shape. WuFei, on the other hand, had respect for his superiors and never questioned their commands, he valued ranks as they structured the organization and in turn he was strict to every agent acting accordingly – demanding nothing but obedience as the new authoritarian of the L1 office. On top of that, he lived and died by the rule book that he honored above all else.

WuFei was not unlikable as a person, nor was he unfair as a boss, but Duo knew they would rub each other the wrong way.

"Is that Major Chang?" Ming-Na wondered.

"Hmm."

"You worked with him on Earth, didn't you? He was lead instructor at the Academy."

"Yeah, I worked with him. But now we'll all be working under him…"

She looked intimidated.

"You'll be fine," Duo assured her. Ming-Na was precisely the type of agent that would be to WuFei's liking; always following instructions to a T.

In the following days the new Major took over the office from Kurasawa – who had a sober send-off party on his last day at work – and the Chinese man had official, closed-door meetings with all captains and he saved Duo and Heero for last.

Duo fidgeted and he hoped his partner would offer him some words of comfort, but Heero was too oblivious to notice his nervousness, not exactly in tune with the spectrum of human emotions and how they were inadvertently expressed. They went up to the twelfth floor and knocked on the door of the Major's office. He was most worried about his own mouth getting them in trouble.

WuFei opened the door for them and gestured for them to take a seat. They had talked a couple of times before in the past few days when they ran into each other in the hallways, but this meeting was different. Duo felt like he was being called to the principal's office.

The Chinese agent sat down at his desk across from them, their files were already open in front of him. "I see Une gave you two a similarly bullshit backstory and fake age as me."

"It works well," Duo said.

"You should address me as 'Sir'."

Duo choked a laugh. "That's not gonna happen."

"I figured. Consider it my _one_ gift to you, since the three of us go way back."

"That's the one thing we get?"

"Take it or leave it."

"I guess I'll take it," he mumbled.

WuFei glanced down at the files, ignoring Duo's sardonic tone. "You've been doing well. A one-hundred percent success rate; very impressive."

"Thank you, Sir."

Duo rolled his eyes at his partner. It still baffled him how someone could save the world – twice! – and still not be too arrogant or too proud to call someone 'Sir', when the whole world should be groveling at Heero's feet in gratitude, WuFei included. Heero never asked anyone to call him 'sir', but people naturally did, because he commanded respect. Even from people who had no idea what he had done for the world and how much he had sacrificed to be able to do what no else could have.

"I noticed an interesting trend in your mission reports."

"You've been here four days and you've already read all our mission reports?" Duo interjected.

"I did my homework, I scanned them last week in preparation."

"What's the 'interesting trend'?"

"Your team doesn't go out into the field with you. Why? Their scores are sufficient for clearance."

_Oh boy, here it comes,_ Duo feared.

Heero explained: "I don't consider them ready for active field duty, Sir. Until I am confident they will not endanger themselves, their teammates, and the mission, I prefer for Duo and me to work the field as a pair, as long as that approach is befitting for the mission assigned to us."

Duo expected WuFei to reprimand them, but instead the Chinese man said: "I accept your explanation. It's your team; it's your call. It's within your rights as Captains. You know best what they are and are not capable of."

"Thank you, Sir."

"That's it? We're cool?" Duo verified.

"A minimum of two agents on a mission is within the stipulations of the Preventer Protocol."

"… Great."

"However, on case F-177, Heero did perform a grade 3 solo-mission. This is strictly prohibited to ensure the safety of our agents. For anything grade 3 or above, the minimum of two field agents is required." WuFei regarded Duo with unreadable eyes. "You let your Co-Captain go out into the field without back-up?"

Duo narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh, fuck you, WuFei. You know damn well I wasn't even here. I was on Earth with you."

"It was my choice to go alone. Kurasawa signed off on it, sir," Heero informed him.

"Kurasawa did a lot of things that I disagree with. These rules are not without reason, agent Yuy."

"_Agent Yuy_?" Duo mirrored incredulously. "Aren't we supposed to 'go way back'?"

"I like keeping the professional and the personal strictly separated, agent Maxwell."

"Yeah, Sally told me," he sneered.

One of WuFei's black eyebrows twitched in response to the jab, but he lived by his own rules and remained professional even though it was obvious he could drink Duo's blood for calling him out on his failed relationship.

Sally had been working at the Academy as well, teaching medical courses, while also heading a team at the research facility, revolutionizing the care and physical rehabilitation of wounded soldiers and agents. Apparently WuFei was so strict about separating the personal from the professional that he'd been a condescending asshole to her one too many times and when she erupted at him at work, he'd treated her so coldly that she called quits on the relationship.

WuFei continued, addressing Heero: "Because it happened under Kurasawa's supervision, there will not be any disciplinary consequences. However, it will not happen again."

"It's not like I couldn't handle the mission on my own, Sir."

"I know. But the rules are in place to save lives and I don't believe in special treatment." He regarded them sternly.

"Yes, Sir."

"As for you two being Co-Captains of Team One-"

_Oh, don't you even dare suggest breaking us up, _Duo thought.

"- while it is unusual, I haven't found any regulations that prohibit it and it seems to working well enough; you complement each other."

"Thank you, Sir. I agree."

Duo smiled at his partner.

"I think we're done here," the Major announced and he flipped both files shut. "I see little point in going over a perfect record. Oh, before I forget, I did make some changes in the mission assignments. Team Three will be taking over cases F-381 and KB-902 and Team One has officially been given the lead on GA-127. We are moving forward with seize-and-destroy. You should start getting ready, I want it wrapped up by the end of the week. All the files have been compiled for your team and are ready in conference room D."

Duo raised his eyebrows at the unexpected news. "I'm sorry, but why the rush on destroying the satellite? And didn't Relena request us for her protection detail this week anyway?"

WuFei nodded. "Yes, senator Peacecraft did personally contact the office to request your appointment and Kurasawa obliged. But since my assignment I've re-assessed the mission and it is clearly a risk level green – a grade 6. There's absolutely no chatter indicating she is in any real danger, so Team Four can handle that."

Heero looked displeased. "Team Four? Sir, I would rather-"

WuFei cut him off. "In the meantime we have intercepted communications this morning suggesting nuclear warheads have been illegally transported to RS-42," he paused to let the severity sink in. "Nuclear warheads on an illegal missile launch site controlled by a radical group of terrorists take priority over a risk level green security detail – regardless of the fact that it involves Relena."

Heero and Duo nodded curtly.

"You are to infiltrate the resource satellite, hack into the system to give us access to their data and then destroy RS42. The documents you'll need are in conference room D," he reminded them.

They nodded again and once they were excused they left his office and headed down to the tenth floor.

"Relena is going to be pissed."

"Hn."

"_Nukes_ though," Duo dumbly said aloud as they descended the two flights of stairs.

"Hn."

"Shit just got real."

"I guess so."

"Excited?"

Heero stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at him. After a moment of self-reflection a smirk appeared. "Kind of."

Duo shook his head at him and pushed through the door, into the bullpen where they gathered their team and led the way to the conference room. Duo felt a familiar flutter in his stomach in anticipation of the thrill.

He regretted not being able to look after Relena. She was important to Heero and Duo knew that having Team Four on her detail would put Heero on edge because he had always felt responsible for her, but these important missions were more than a mere adrenaline high for the two of them. It was their purpose. It made it a little less difficult to live with the fact that they lived through the war, when so many innocent people weren't as lucky.

* * *

**I hope to deliver the next update sooner, but if I can't, my goal is to at least stick to weekly uploads. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Here we go… **

***grabs a bucket of shit and turns on the fan***

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part III – Heero's POV**

For three days they worked around the clock in preparation. They familiarized themselves with the schematics of the resource satellite. The blueprints were dated, there was no way of knowing to what extent RS42 had been remodeled to suit its new purpose, but the basic construction would still be the same.

With the available information on the structure and load-bearing capabilities of the support beams, walls and floors of the interior, Duo - assisted by Grace - determined the most suitable type of explosive and calculated how much of an explosive, at several critical points, would start a chain of events that caused the satellite to collapse in on itself. They couldn't just load RS42 up with octanitrocubane and blow it to smithereens, because the resulting loose debris would be a hazard to L4 and L3 that circulated the earth at the same altitude, or DTE – Distance To Earth - as RS42. They choose Semtex, given the excellent weight-to-explosive-power ratio; it would be light weight and two backpacks' worth of it would be sufficient for a controlled explosion. Taking out certain support beams would cause the satellite to collapse in on itself, minimizing debris.

Heero took charge of identifying the most efficient entry and exit strategy, aided by the insight of Viver and Rubo. There were two boarding docks for shuttles, but both were presumed to be guarded. Access vents on several points of the outer shell – meant for maintenance workers to climb in and out of – would be the safest bet to gain entry unseen, as was necessary if they wanted to avoid giving the terrorists manning the satellite enough time to wipe the computer system of the information they needed to further unearth their network. The vents were only small enough for a man in a space suit to fit through, they weren't equipped to accommodate even the smallest shuttle. They would have to use the nearest traffic route to approach RS42 and get as close as possible without detection and then eject from their shuttle and propel themselves towards the satellite. The method allowed for little accuracy, but the vents were located all over the outer shell and as long as they landed somewhere on the North-East side, they were in ideal position to board the satellite, because from there it would only be a short way to the control room.

While Heero would be hacking into the system and creating a digital portal that would allow the technical staff at Preventer HQ to access and download the data, Duo would have to stealthily navigate the walkways of the hollow satellite and place the Semtex at the vital construction points. Once their tasks were completed they'd meet on the lower shuttle dock, since satellite surveillance had revealed the lower dock was the only one of the two in active use and they would best stand a chance commandeering a shuttle there and escaping before the set time of the explosion. With Heero having full control of the system by that time, he could lock doors remotely and shut off certain corridors while opening others, clearing a way for the team.

They planned everything to the greatest detail: from the approach shuttle they would use, to the types of spacesuits they would wear, to the gear they would carry with them. Several contingency plans were fully worked out.

The rest of the team complained about being left out on the action, but Heero knew he and Duo would be able to execute the mission more efficiently if it was just the two of them anyway and whether their teammates appreciated it or not, they were integral parts of the plan. Grace, Viver and Rubo had helped during the preparations and had given valuable suggestions and insight. Swafford would fly the approach shuttle and was on stand-by for a distraction procedure should that be necessary. All the while, Beck would be monitoring communication traffic in and around RS42, as well as act as back-up to Heero and assist in setting up an access portal once Heero had taken down the firewalls. Cho would keep Chang and Team Two – their back-up extraction team – up to date and liaison with HQ.

Everything had been planned and every scenario had been taken into account and mission time T was set once Major Chang gave the green light. All that was left to do was rest.

Heero was confident there would be no surprises, nothing that he hadn't prepared for. Until, eleven hours before departure, Duo said:

"Haywire, Viv and Beck should come with us."

Duo had come looking for him in the Preventer gym. Heero had just finished a sparring match with the captain of Team Two and he had been running on the treadmill, expending all of the energy so he could catch some sleep in the basement bunks before they'd had to leave for the shuttle port in nine hours. In the 24 hours leading up to time T, Preventer agents were not allowed to leave the premises, to ensure that they wouldn't consume alcohol, would eat well and get enough sleep, while a medical team ran last-minute blood tests on them to clear them.

Heero was sprinting on the treadmill, set at its highest speed. He had to pick up the pace to be able to reach the console and dial down the miles per hour to a jog so he focus on his partner and his absurd suggestion. Heero didn't even ask him anything, he just stared at him, trusting Duo could read him well enough to know what he thought of the idea.

"I know what you're thinking," Duo said. "We always go out with just the two of us and it has worked well-"

"It has worked perfectly," Heero amended, while he worked to catch his breath.

"But this mission is different from anything we've done in the past two years."

"We've dealt with worse. _By ourselves_."

"That's true, but we were by ourselves because we had no other options. This time, we have an opportunity to bring back-up with us. The stakes are higher than they've been in a long time, I don't think we should leave our resources untapped."

"They're not 'untapped'. They have their roles to play. I know you pity them-"

"It's not about that!" Duo argued and Heero didn't understand why he raised his voice at him. Two members of Team Two who had also been working out in the gym, paused with dumbbells halfway up to their chest and stared. Duo shot them a dangerous look. "Do you mind?"

The twosome purposefully turned away and continued pumping their weights.

Duo sighed dramatically and put his hands on his hips. "It's not about wanting to give them a chance. I want us to go into this knowing we did everything possible to enable a successful outcome."

"We did," Heero stated. "This is hardly the opportune time for a learning moment."

"You're not listening to me! You've been calling the shots for the past two years, it's time you listen to me – really listen to me, and consider what I'm saying."

The Japanese agent jumped up onto the frame of the treadmill so he could stop running. "I'll listen when you give me an actual reason."

"Be honest with me, if this was the perfect team, with perfect individual scores – even by your standards – would you agree that it would benefit the mission for them to go out into the field with us?"

"Yes." He quickly added: "But this is not the perfect team. _We're_ the perfect team." He gestured between the two of them.

Duo's eyes softened and he smiled in a way that he shouldn't, not at the office; it was dangerous, not because anyone would be able to tell from a smile, but because it made Heero want to kiss his lips. "The perfect team does not exist," Duo contended. "The two of us are not a perfect team because it's just two of us and there is only so much two people can do. And the team isn't perfect because they don't have perfect scores and they don't have experience."

"And you are advocating that two negatives make a positive?"

"I think their skills can complement us and with our experience we can guide them. All they have to do out there is what they have been trained to do; to do what they do best according to our orders."

Heero wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and jumped off the treadmill. He reached for his water bottle and screwed off the top, but didn't even get around to drinking before he spoke again: "How would they complement us on this specific mission? We have all bases covered: I hack the system, you set the explosion, we get out of there."

"I don't doubt that we can do it ourselves, but I also don't doubt we could do it _faster_ if we have extra sets of hands."

Heero quirked his eyebrow at him, urging him to continue. If Duo wanted him to sign off in the idea, he had to work harder to convince him.

"It's a classic divide and conquer approach. With Beck in the control room with you, with physical access to the system, he is of more use to you hacking into the database and uploading the information to HQ. You could be done in half the time." At his co-captain's doubtful look he conceded: "Alright, alright, more like three-quarters of the time. But still faster, and that's my point. In the meantime, I have to set ten charges of Semtex, over twenty-three floors. If I have Haywire there to assist me, we can do it twice as fast."

"Where would Viver come in?"

"She can be back-up for Haywire if he runs into any trouble. Haywire is trigger-happy, but we need to be stealthy for as long as possible. Viver's hand-to-hand combat is good enough to draw blood even from you."

Subconsciously Heero made a face as he remembered the warmth and taste of his own blood after she had clocked him in the nose during a match. She was good, she was the best on the team, even though her scores were not the highest on all disciplines, she showed consistency and that made her more reliable than the others. Heero actually had the least objections to her coming along, but if the only reason to bring her along would be to have Grace's back, her presence was superfluous because he did not agree to bringing either Grace or Beck with them. Beck was slow and imprecise in stressful situations; he was eager to prove his worth and willing to work for it and Heero could admire him for that, but he wasn't convinced he was ready. Grace was a cowboy, with scores all over the place that didn't always back up his inflated ego

While he agreed that, in theory, they could perform the mission in a smaller amount of time if assisted by other team members, he worried that letting them out into the field could just as easily cost them time if they had to constantly correct them. "Slow is precise and precise is fast," he recited. Doctor J had drilled those words into him. The mantra had helped his younger self become less jittery and hurried, because he'd made mistakes if he tried to rush his work.

Duo shook his head. "Not fast enough. You don't know how many firewalls you are going to run into and I don't know how often I have to interrupt my work to take down an Unfriendly."

Heero still hadn't gotten used to that term – 'Unfriendly' – it was such an odd euphemism but according to the Preventer Protocol, they were not allowed to call people "enemies" anymore.

"Heero, what if we end up taking too long and they find out the satellite has been infiltrated and they have time to manually launch one of those nukes, before you can take over the system and before I can destabilize the structure?" Duo's eyes were pleading him.

"… If they fuck up we'll need even more time," Heero tried.

"They won't fuck up."

"You can't know that for sure."

"I trust them."

Heero sighed and looked away. "I don't."

"Do you trust me?"

He blinked at him. He stared at his kind face and his calm eyes. "I do."

He knew Duo would never do anything to knowingly endanger their lives or the mission. He joked around a lot, but he was as serious about this as everyone else in the agency.

Heero still had his reservations about letting the other three join them, especially since it was such a last-minute change to the plan, but he had to remind himself of one simple truth: without arrogance or ego playing a part in it, Heero knew he was better than Duo in many regards, but he was not the better leader. Duo was the best captain, with a better understanding of their team. In the past two years, Duo had never openly questioned Heero's decision to sideline the rest of the team during missions, for him to do that now, meant he felt strongly about it; that he felt strongly Heero was making a mistake by wanting to leave Grace, Viver and Beck out of the action. If Duo was confident the mission would have a greater chance of success without citizen casualties if they went in as a team of five, Heero had to follow that instinct.

The question was still in Duo's eyes and Heero answered it with a simple nod.

Duo didn't look as pleased as Heero thought he would be, but he did smile at him and thanked him for his consent. "Want to come with me to update the team?"

Heero shook his head and stepped back onto the treadmill. "I need to run more, or else I won't be able to sleep."

"Okay. I'll let Haywire, Viv and Beck know they should get ready." He shot a look at the two other men in the gym; he resented their presence and Heero knew why. "Run and get some sleep. I'll catch my last few Z's later."

"Will you come sleep in my room again?" They'd slept in the basement last night as well, not wanting to waste time going home, even though they were technically still allowed. There were seven rooms, with four bunk beds each. They had been the only ones spending the night and they could have had their own rooms, but Duo joined them in his. Though they both acknowledged it was a risk, but it had been nice.

"Better not." Duo made a face. "Besides, I wouldn't want to wake you."

Heero nodded. Although he dreaded the prospect of sleeping alone, it was for the best.

Team Two and the three other members of their own team would be spending the night in the basement tonight as well, so rooms would have to be shared, but it was an unspoken rule that captains got an entire room to themselves, while the other team members would share. So it would probably draw too much unwanted attention and it was wisest to sleep separately.

Heero didn't sleep much that night. He was exhausted but he wasn't comfortable in the narrow bunk bed. He missed Duo's body to collapse against. He missed the rhythm of Duo's heartbeat under his cheek and the way his head on his chest rose and fell with Duo's steady breath. He shivered without the other man's body heat.

At 9 am the next morning, he was grateful he was allowed to come out of his room. He had started to feel trapped but he knew the medical support staff would get on his case if he had ventured out of his room. They would have lectured him on the need for sleep ahead of a mission and with the way Chang was running the office, the nurses would have probably ratted on him and called in the Major.

Heero understood that they had rules for good reason, but maybe he'd been spending too much time with Duo, because sometimes he felt like rebelling, thinking he knew better anyways.

He went up to the mess hall. The entirety of Team Two was seated at one of the tables. They looked relaxed and as he walked by them he caught bits and pieces of conversations not related to the mission. He presumed the day was quite different in their experience. While they were technically on call, they didn't feel the same pressure. The team had been assigned as their back-up on many other occasions but there had never been need for them to actually suit up and come out in support of them. Duo and Heero had never needed their help before.

The captain greeted Heero and Heero nodded in response because Duo often told him it would be impolite not to.

He was served a breakfast that he knew he wouldn't be able to stomach after his sleepless, uneasy night, but he had to eat as much as possible. He took his tray to an empty table.

He used to like being alone, but he couldn't deny the skip in his heartbeat when Duo walked through the double doors, looking messy and tired. Heero waited for his co-captain to get his lunch before he would dig into his own. He felt a little better and more at peace once Duo seated himself next to him.

"Morning." Duo took a drink from his coffee and made a face. "God, I hate the mess hall coffee. Wish I could run upstairs and brew a cup with our own machine on the tenth."

"I think they have exactly the same machine down here."

"Eh. It's still not the same." He poked his finger at his soggy toast and stirred his spork through his scrambled eggs. He didn't eat. "Did you sleep well?" He inquired.

The Japanese agent forced himself to eat some fruit. "Well enough, I guess."

Duo smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. Eyes that could see right through Heero. "Yeah, me neither." He looked up when Beck, Grace and Viver walked into the mess hall.

The threesome was boisterous. They were excited. They were already feeling the adrenaline. When they passed friends on Team Two, they got high-fives from some of them.

"It's not about glory," Heero muttered to no one in particular.

"Don't mind them. It's natural. We get excited too, don't we?"

Heero ate some of his toast before he admitted: "Normally, but I don't feel excited right now." He didn't and he didn't know what that meant.

Duo nodded.

Heero didn't know what that meant either.

Their three team members sat down at the table with them. "Good morning, sir," said Beck, taking the seat next to Heero.

"Hn."

"I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity, sir. We will not disappoint you."

"It's not about whether you disappoint me or not," Heero stated. "Failure is not disappointment. Success is not a pat on the back. There is more at stake today."

"Yessir, of course," he readily agreed and he stuffed his mouth with his gluten free waffle.

Duo didn't say another word during breakfast, nor did he eat. He stared into his coffee. He didn't drink that either.

"Did you all sign the wavers?" Heero asked.

"Yes, sir," they all said.

"And update your contact information?"

"Yes, sir."

He nodded curtly, pleased with their responses.

After breakfast they went to mission control. The communication center was dedicated to GA-127 until Team One would give the all clear. Cho was at her station. Swafford had been waiting for them. Rubo was there as well, even though his role from then on was passive and he needn't be present. Heero knew the six of them were friends, yet even with his limited social skills he could discern there was tension between Rubo and Swafford and the three newly minted field agents. He dismissed it as nervousness and perhaps irrational jealousy. Duo didn't raise any alarm, so he assumed he shouldn't read into the fact that the two men weren't as friendly with the rest of the team as they used to be.

Chang approached them to review the latest information with them. The mission was officially greenlit and Heero, Duo, Beck, Viver, Grace and Swafford were driven to the space port where a shuttle was waiting for them. Their equipment had already been loaded onboard: five space suits, the backpacks with Semtex, weapons and the necessary tools.

From L1 it was a three hour flight to RS42 at the current distance between the two points. Because RS42 circled the earth at a lower altitude but with a faster speed, the distance between L1 and the resource satellite fluctuated. Part of the consideration when determining mission time T was the travel time between the two and where Rs42 would be in relation to the other colonies at the scheduled time of her destruction. She had been closer to L1 and was already moving further away, but in three hours and thirty minutes, there was a twenty minute window during which she was the furthest away from any colony and other satellite than she ever would be. If any debris would come loose during the explosion, clean-up crews standing by would still have time to clear away the larger chunks that might cause damage to L3 and L4 at the same DTE as RS42.

Swafford wouldn't take over the controls of the shuttle until later. As long as he was able to, Duo would pilot the shuttle. He took a seat at the joystick and strapped himself him. Once everyone confirmed they were secured in their seats, the bridge retracted and the shuttle decoupled from the space dock with a jolt.

Heero sat in the back of the small shuttle with the rest, since there wasn't even a co-pilot seat in front, next to his partner. He observed as Grace and Viver shared a smile and gave each other a thumbs up. Swafford sat next to Heero, with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was sulking. Heero knew what sulking looked like – Duo liked to do a mocking exaggeration of it whenever Heero wouldn't give him his way. Honestly, Swafford shouldn't complain. Until today, one could argue he had seen more 'action' than his team members. As the best pilot among his peers, Swafford had flown his captains out to many mission. But Heero supposed that was nothing to boast about to the other agents. There was little grandeur in shuttling his bosses around and he knew no one was being complimentary when they nicknamed him "chauffeur" behind his back.

The entirety of the flight, Grace and Viver were the only ones to talk. They were seated in the back and the two whispered softly, only to occasionally let out an obnoxiously loud laugh. Whenever he cracked his eyes open and bothered to look over his shoulder to glare at them, he noticed they had already been looking his way.

Beck was nervous the entire time, wiggling his leg uncontrollably. His gaze was focused at a spot on the wall. With his fingernails he scratched his knees.

Duo had his earphones in. Listening to music was his way of relaxing, but it was odd to Heero that his co-captain didn't look back once to check on his team. After all, he was supposed to be the attentive and understanding mentor between the two of them. Beck looked like he needed some encouragement, but Heero had no idea how to go about that.

At T minus 30 minutes, Duo gave the signal that it was time suit up and Swafford maneuvered to the front in the zero G shuttle and took over the control of the ship so Duo could get ready with the rest.

They put on their black space suits and strapped on their holsters for their hand guns, extra ammo and army knives. Duo and Grace both had a backpack loaded with Semtex, wiring and timers and the tools to arm the charges, as well as a drill to unscrew access panels to get through locked doors. Heero, Beck and Viver could make do with a utility belt. They all had a one-man flight regulator – or "empty fire extinguishers" as Duo liked to call them – basically a canister of compressed air. With calculated releases of the air, they could adjust their flight path in space. The suits with built in flight regulators would allow for a more accurate and controlled trajectory, but they were too cumbersome and they wouldn't be able to fit through the satellite's access vents.

"We're approaching the drop-off point," Swafford announced, reading the instruments. "T minus 90 seconds."

Heero and Duo shared a look, like they always did, but Duo's eyes didn't offer him the same reassurance as they normally would and he supposed he couldn't offer Duo any either. They put on their helmets.

The five of them climbed into the empty missile tubes, barely able to squeeze into narrow spaces. Swafford turned on auto-pilot long enough to close the breech doors to lock them in.

This was why Preventer agents couldn't 'let themselves go' the way some other kinds of law enforcement officers did, because as a Preventer you had to get creative and sometimes you would be asked to do something insane, like allow yourself to be crammed into a missile tube to literally be shot into space.

It was Duo's idea.

Of course it was Duo's idea.

It was a good idea.

Being launched from the missile tubes would give them the necessary momentum to cross the remaining distance to the surface of the resource satellite swiftly to maintain undetected. Swafford had to angle the shuttle just right as he passed by RS42 as close as he could while still staying on the known traffic route, to avoid suspicion. If he did his job well, it was a straight shot to the North East side of the satellite; about a 3 minute flight. If he screwed up it was up to each individual to get on track using their flight regulators. If he screwed up too badly, they would hopelessly overshoot the satellite and Swafford would have to turn back and come fish them out of outer space, which would cost so much time that the mission would fail and a shuttle deviating off course in its vicinity would probably alert the crew of RS42 that something was in the works.

Heero planted his feet securely against the slider on the inside of the breech door. The slider would function as a ram. Pressurized air would push the slider through the tube, ejecting the cargo.

"_Decompressing tubes_," Swafford announced according to procedure. His voice was crisp in Heero's left ear.

The shuttle pressure was slowly released through valves until the pressure in the tubes was equal to the low pressure on the other side of the hull. Safely in his space suit, Heero didn't even notice it.

"_Opening muzzle doors_."

He looked up and watched the hatch open. He saw the black void of outer space, the sun and white lights in the distance; he couldn't tell which ones were stars and which ones were shuttles, satellites and colonies.

"_T minus 15 seconds_."

Heero saw the silhouette of RS42 appear in his line of sight. He crossed his arms in front of him and tucked his chin against his chest. He felt his heart pounding, even through his suit, it pumped the adrenaline through his body and he felt invincible.

Swafford counted down: "_10… 9… 8… 7… 6… Arming air ram… 4… 3… 2… 1… G_-"

For a moment Heero couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. His body was propelled out of the missile tube and before he knew it he was flying through outer space with speed. He kept his legs straight and his arms tightly against his chest, clutching the regulator to him, even though he knew movements would not deter him from his path without the resistance of air. He looked ahead at their target. It looked like Swafford hadn't failed them; the satellite was dead ahead. He looked to his left, at Duo and Beck and then to his right to check on Grace and Viver. They were all beside him and right on track.

"_That was amazing_!" Grace exclaimed. "_Wooohooo_!"

Viver joined in. Beck laughed nervously.

"_Yeah, how's that for a straight-shooter_?" Swafford chimed in. "_I've been an excellent shot since I was fourteen years old._"

The three team members laughed, but Heero missed the joke – as he almost exclusively did.

"_Do you mind_?" Duo bit. "_Our com-lines are for communication, not for cheering and boasting. We're not the only ones listening._"

The entire mission control on L1 was listening in as well, WuFei included. However, regulations prohibited them from replying, barring emergency situations, because the com-line would get crowded otherwise.

"_Yes, sir_," Grace replied, but the way he slurred his words made his polite response to his captain's order seem disrespectful.

"Everyone stay focused," Heero commanded. "When we get closer, release the air to slow down. I'll tell you when."

The resource satellite appeared before them larger and larger as they hurdled towards it.

"Now!" Heero instructed when they were close enough and with the exhaust of the regulator aimed straight ahead, he quickly succeeded in slowing himself down so he would be able to land comfortably. Duo was right beside him. Viver and Grace released two much air, slowing down too much too soon, leaving them several yards behind them, but they would be able to land on the satellite unhindered.

Beck, however, was in trouble. He must have been imprecise with his aim because he veered to the left, into Duo's path and Heero watched them crash into each other and then the mass of their two bodies collided with his. Reactively he grabbed onto both of them, to prevent anyone from drifting off. Duo adjusted their flight path with his regulator as well as he could but they still hit the satellite about a hundred feet to the left of where Viver and Grace landed.

They secured themselves to the hull with magnetic tethers and Heero felt his heart race when he noticed the spider web crack in the acrylic visor of Duo's helmet.

"It's fine. Viv, Haywire, meet Yuy and Beck half way." Duo looked at Heero again. "I'll patch it up while you guys get started on the access hatch and then I'll come over."

Heero nodded. He released the magnet on the tether, giving him the mobility to move along the outer shell to an access point about midway between where the three of them and the other two had landed.

Beck lingered at Duo's side, but Duo told him: "Go, the more drills the faster they can get the hatch open."

Beck obeyed and followed Heero to meet up with Viver and Grace.

"Swagger, any chatter after our landing?"

"_She's quiet, Duo_."

Heero and the other three set to work on unscrewing the bolts holding down the hatch door. The hatch was designed to be opened from the inside only, so they had to dismantle the door to get in. Four drills for thirty-five bolts; each taking nine seconds to unscrew.

"Duo, what's your oxygen level?" Heero asked as he worked. The crack in his helmet would be leaking oxygen and they didn't have much to begin with. He'd have to be quick to tape it shut to stop the leak. Rather than concerned, he caught himself getting angry. He had a suspicion the three inexperienced agents would cause them trouble, but not even he had expected it would occur in the first five minutes of the mission.

"Twenty-two percent. And I've patched the leak. I'm coming over."

A few second later Duo was at his side and he helped unscrew the last few bolts. Once the final bolt came loose, the hatch door floated away, revealing a dark tube they all had to cram into. Heero went last and he could barely fit inside with the rest of them already in there. They couldn't open the door at the bottom, even though they had access to the control panel, they had to create airlock first or else they would end up explosively depressurizing the entire satellite.

Their bodies became heavy as the constant spinning of the satellite created its own gravity on board.

Since outer hatch doors could get damaged by space debris or meteors, there was always a secondary, inner door for emergencies to be able to achieve airlock. Heero felt for the ridge, to make sure his head was ducked low enough before he triggered the emergency door. As soon as he pressed the button, a panel snapped shut, scratching the top of his helmet as it did, locking them in.

"Clear."

"Activating air vault," Beck said. He had been the first to go in, so he was at the control panel by the hatch at the bottom.

There was the hiss of air pouring into the tube until the pressure matched the livable conditions of the space craft.

"Opening breech door."

With a clang the hatch below them opened and one by one they emerged from the tube.

They took off their helmets and stowed them away in a storage locker so no one would come across them during patrols. Heero adjusted his earpiece and headset after pulling off the tight-fitting helmet.

"Okay, we all know what to do. Sync times?"

They all looked down at their watches.

"Mine's at 40-43."

Three of them nodded. Viver quickly adjusted the time on her watch to synchronize with the rest. "Confirmed."

"Our magic window starts in twenty-six minutes. If we take longer than forty-six, this bitch starts to approach L2 – that's my peeps on that colony, so let's not take that long."

"The odds of the debris getting flung low enough to get into L2's DTE are negligible. L3 and L4 – at this altitude – are at the greatest risk," Beck informed.

Duo sighed. "I get what you're saying, but that's not comforting. Let's get to work. Let's do this."

They headed down the hallway, hugging the walls. Heero and Grace were in the back with their guns drawn, Duo, Viver and Beck let the way, palming their army knives. If they ran into any "unfriendlies" they had to first try to subdue them without noisy gunfire.

Thankfully, the inner structure hadn't been remodeled too drastically and with the old schematics memorized they found their way to the T-junction where they would part ways. Duo, Grace and Viver had to go right and work their way down to set the charges, while Heero and Beck needed to go right to breach the control room at the top and start recovering the data they would need for the Preventers to further investigate the terrorist cell.

"Hey."

Heero stopped at Duo's urgent tone and he looked at the hand placed on his shoulder with mild alarm. They had to be professional around the other three.

Duo didn't seem to care much about their audience, nor the time pressure. He stepped in close. "Be safe. Don't be a hero."

Heero frowned at the odd request. "Too late."

Duo smirked. He patted his shoulder and distanced himself from him again. "Let's gut this bitch."

The two splinter teams ran off in opposite directions. Heero looked over his shoulder once and right as he did, so did Duo and their gazes met and locked until the threesome rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

Beck and Heero were quick to reach the door to the control room. Heero used his handheld electronic device to plug into the control panel for the door and hack into it to unlock it. When all that was needed to slide the doors open was an ENTER, he handed the device to Beck, instructing him to stay out of the doorway and wait for his 'go'. Heero got into position with his gun in his right hand and his knife in his left.

He inched Beck back so he could have cover behind the doorpost on the side where the door would open first.

He listened for a moment at Duo's voice in his left ear, relaying orders to Grace and Viver as they parted ways to cover more ground. "Beck," Heero whispered, to clarify who he was addressing. "3… 2… 1… Go."

ENTER.

The door slid open with a swoosh. In a split second his brain registered the single man, seated at the control panel with his feet propped up, his back facing the door. He was across the room but by the time he would have turned around to see that the door had been opened by the agent and not by one of his co-workers, Heero would be on him.

The Japanese agent leapt across the room and brown eyes widened in shock. The man raised one arm in defense and reached for his radio with his other hand, but Heero caught his wrist and drove the eight inch blade into his torso, angled up between the fourth and fifth rib, piercing his heart. The body went lax instantly and when Heero released him the man slipped bonelessly out of the seat and onto the floor.

"Come in here. Close the door."

Beck's face was white. He unplugged the device he was holding, stepped into the room and pressed a button on the panel on the inside of the door. It slid shut and a green light lit up to indicate it had been properly locked.

"Hack in, change the passcode, so no one can come in."

Beck nodded and went to work.

Heero rolled the big man out of his way, not minding the streak of blood he left on the white floor. He seated himself in the chair. The seat and the backrest were warm from the man's body's heat. He popped open a panel on the computer in front of him to plug in his passcode encryptor. He had written the code himself and the little device could crack the code to access the mainframe in mere seconds.

"_Heero. Report_." Duo sounded out of breath from running down stairs. Grace and Viver were planting the charges on the upper floors and Duo would start halfway and work his way down to the lower floor.

"We've breached the control room." The computer beeped and the screen in front of him came to life. "I'm going in."

"_We need Beck to find updated blueprints and forward them to us. They've built an entire skeleton of metal walkways in the open space, surrounding the missiles. I'm worried we might need to relocate some of the charges. Some of these beams look load-bearing and we didn't take that into account_."

"I'm on it," Beck said and he seated himself in a second chair and got to work on a different computer. The files he was looking for should not be encrypted so they would be easy enough for him to find.

The data Heero was interested in, however, would be under lock and key.

His fingers flew over the keyboard. He downloaded viruses of his own creation onto the computer to search for and isolate sections of the system and automatically disable lower-level fire walls. Running a ghost program he hid his presence in the system and he made changes to the launch protocol to hinder the launch even in the case of a manual override. Those warheads weren't going anywhere.

"Duo," Beck started, "I've sent the blueprints to your phones. But it looks like those beams aren't load-bearing, they are only supporting the lower frame of the walkways and keeping the missiles upright."

"_That's good news. Haywire, proceed as planned_."

"_Will do_."

"Duo, won't the explosions trigger the nuclear warheads?" Beck wondered.

Heero rolled his eyes at the question, but forced himself to focus on his own work.

"_Hold that thought_," Duo whispered. "_I've got company_…"

Heero listened to his partners pants and grunt and the dull, distant blows of an intense but short-lived fist fight.

"_Jesus,_" Duo breathed and he joked: "_That was a big mother fucker_."

A smirk forced its way onto Heero's lips.

"_To answer your question, Beck: No. Nukes only go off following their own sequence of detonation. They are going to be safely entombed in the ruins of this satellite until we can get a team to extract them. The charges we're setting off are relatively mild and are only going to weaken the structure. The satellite is going to crush in on itself_."

"If class is over," Heero interjected gruffly, "I'd like some quiet so I can focus."

"_Sorry_." Duo chuckled.

Mere minutes later tabs started opening on the screen, popping up left and right. "I'm in," Heero declared to HQ and mission control on L1. "I'm going to use their own network to send them a Trojan Horse. If they access their own data from any other computer, we'll be able to see into the files on those computers as well."

"_Do you mind?_" Duo whined dramatically, "_I'm handling explosives here. I'm trying to_ focus."

A smile appeared on his lips as he recognized his partner was mocking him. "Right. Beck, activate the link with HQ. The door is wide open."

"Yes, sir."

They worked in quiet. All he heard were his own fingers racing over the keyboards and an occasional exchange between Grace and Viver and Duo checking up on their progress.

"_One more charge to go_," Duo announced.

"_I just finished the third. Two more to go_," Grace responded.

"_When I'm done down here I'll come back up to help you_."

"_We got it, Duo_," Viver bit.

"_I'm coming up when I'm done_," He repeated, leaving no room for argument.

Suddenly everything went dark. Heero froze with his fingers over the keys. The room blackened and the computer died right in front of him.

"_What the fuck ju_-" Before Duo could finish his sentence, red emergency lights came on.

The computer came back online, but it was back on the start-up screen and when Heero tried the passcode his encryptor had deciphered earlier, a pop-up tab flashed with an error message. He was locked out.

"I- I'm sorry," Beck stammered and he looked at his captain with wide eyes.

"What did you do?" Heero demanded.

"I- I don't-… I-…"

"Well, whatever you did, you triggered an emergency power-down and now we're on back-up power and I'm locked out. We might have just lost everything."

"_Forget about that_!" Duo bellowed. "_The entire crew has just been alerted someone is meddling with the controls. They're coming right for you as we speak_!"

Heero shook his head. "I need to get back into the system, to see if the link with HQ is still open. If not, I can download as much data as possible onto my portable." He frantically set to work.

"_Heero, you and Beck need to get out of there! Now_!"

Heero's fingers stilled and he scrunched up his face.

"_Now, Heero_!"

He knew Duo was right. He jumped up from his seat and motioned for Beck to follow him. "Let's go," he instructed calmly. Beck looked anything but calm.

They headed out the door and down the corridor the way they came, to the T-junction where they had splintered off from Duo and the rest. They'd have to follow their route, to the hollow heart of the satellite and down the twenty-three flights of stairs to the lowest floor to get to the lower space dock before the crew would converge on them.

It dawned on him that the mission had failed. The charges would be found and disarmed before they could be set off. The warheads could be transported off site before back-up arrived. Without the necessary intel, the Preventers had no way to track down the entirety of the terrorist cell. Who knew where the warheads would be popping up next? He forced the question from his mind; he could not afford to be distracted.

They sprinted down the corridor, knowing they had a large distance to cover to reach their escape, but Heero heard two other sets of footsteps mingle with their own - heavy military boots landing on the floor in a slow, constant jog. He looked ahead and knew two unfriendlies would round the corner any second, so he grabbed Beck by his collar and pulled him into the nook of a doorway. At Beck's questioning look, Heero touched his index finger to his own lips and he palmed his handgun. If the guards were worth their salt, they would be responding to the alarm with their guns drawn and bringing a knife to a gunfight wasn't an option in that case.

Heero peeked around the corner and fired at the first guard, but he didn't have time to discharge a second bullet at the second sentry because the man opened fire on him and he had to pull back for cover. He listened intently to the shots and he counted them but it was a Smith & Wesson MP 80 with a twenty-four round magazine – only a fool would empty that clip before hitting target. The bullets ricocheted off the metal wall, but the pangs got increasingly closer until Heero could even hear the click of the firing pin every time the trigger was pulled. Using the sound, he pinpointed the location of the guard and he extended his arm around the corner. He risked getting hit, but it would be a non-vital injury. He fired off a single round just as a bullet grazed along his forearm, tearing his suit and skin open.

A heartbeat later there was a thud as a heavy, lifeless body slumped to the floor.

"_I heard the gunfire, who was that_?" Duo asked with evident concern.

"It was up here. We're fine." Heero replied coolly. He grabbed Beck again and pulled him along, stepping over the two bodies on the floor.

"Jesus Christ," the inexperienced agent muttered in awe.

In his ear Duo and Grace were having a discussion.

"_We could still activate the timers and set off the charges as planned_," Grace boldly suggested.

"_There's no point_," Duo responded, "_They'll find most of the charges long before they go off and even an imbecile can diffuse Semtex._"

That was true. It was literally a case of pulling the wires out of the plastic compound, disconnecting it from its timer and detonator. There were measures that could be taken to prevent such easy dismantling, but that hadn't been necessary for the mission.

"_What if we set the timers early_?" Viver suggested.

"_Don't you even dare fuck with my timers, Grace_," Duo warned, before the hot shot 'Haywire' could get any ideas following her suggestion. "_Shit!_" He hissed and then there were muffled sounds of a fight, followed by the pops of three gunshots.

Heero pushed through an emergency door at the end of the hallway marked MISSILE LAUNCH and he dragged Beck with him onto the metal grate walkway on the other side.

The vast open space would have been large enough to fit all five of their Gundams, if not for the clutter of walkways and metal staircases. Erected in the center, in triangular formation, were three tall missiles – as tall as buildings – their shaft was white but the armed head, pointing up to the hatch above, was black and marked with radioactive warning signs.

Heero took a moment to look over the railing, down to ground level far beneath them. Twenty-three floors; twelve steps per floor; 276 steps to get down. In the meantime, every terrorist on the satellite was coming their way.

He maneuvered Beck in front of him so he could keep an eye on him while they started racing down.

"Duo, where are you?" Heero asked, trailing closely behind Beck.

"_I'm all the way below_."

"You need to head to the dock to clear a path and find us a shuttle."

"_I don't_-"

"There's no point in you wasting time waiting for us," Heero barked. "We need to get out as quickly as possible." Because of the haphazard inner construction surrounding the missiles, not all the stairs were directly below one another and every few floors they had to waste time running to the other end of the space where the next set of stairs were. It made calculating their time difficult. His estimation, however, was discouraging.

"_Heero, there is plenty of time, we aren't going to set off the charges._"

"It's not about what we set off!" He growled. "Duo, unless the power-down erased the changes I made in the code, the launch hatch isn't going to open. If they decide to fire those missiles, the rocket exhausts are going to burn up this place."

"_Jesus fuck_…"

"It seemed like a good safety precaution at the time..." And it was, because the five of them should have been long gone before the general alarm would sound. Any mad-dash attempt for the terrorists to make use of their warheads would backfire on them and cause their own destruction.

"_Haywire, Viv, where are you guys_?"

"_We're also on our way down_," Grace panted.

"_Okay, hurry up. I'm gonna head for the dock and find us a ride out of here_."

"Copy that," Heero and Grace replied in unison.

Even in his haste, he noticed a black shape moving on the walkway directly across from him and Heero reactively tackled Beck to the ground, right as bullets hit the metal railing where they had been.

Their attacker took cover behind a beam, but his frame was wider than the vertical steel. Heero fired off a shot with an accuracy he could always count on. The bullet didn't hit a vital organ, but the man doubled over in pain and he slumped to the floor when the second bullet penetrated the skull through the temple.

Heero jumped up. "Up. Up," he ordered. He had felt Beck shake. When the agent didn't respond he hoisted him upright by his arm.

"I shouldn't even be here!" The agent yelled in a panic.

"No, you shouldn't," Heero agreed. "So let's get you the fuck out of here. Sound like a good idea?"

Beck nodded frantically.

"Then go! Come on!"

He heard gunshots in his left ear and Viver announced through gritted teeth: "_We're taking fire. We're pinned down_."

"Where are you?"

"_Third floor_," Grace replied.

Heero and Beck weren't even halfway down yet. Grace and Viver were on their own. When he said as much, the female agent bit back: "_We got this! We don't need you to come rescue u_s!"

_Good_, Heero thought, _because I can't right now_. He continued rushing his shaken team mate down the stairs. "Not fast enough, Beck! Two steps at a time!" He heard a scrimmage coming from Duo's end of the com-line, but he knew his co-captain could handle himself and he pushed his worries aside.

Grace and Viver succeeded in overpowering their own attackers and were victorious and overconfident in the aftermath of the battle.

"_I think we can still pull this off_," Viver said. "_Most of the charges have been set and so far everyone has been too busy chasing us to even notice the explosives. We're on the ground floor at the main detonator. Haywire can reprogram the timer and synchronize remotely with the other timers, right_?"

"… _Yes, I can_."

"_I told you not to touch my fucking timers, Haywire! You better not! Heero and Beck are still up there_!" Duo shouted.

"_We'll start the countdown when they are down here and leave just enough time to get to the hangar. You've got a shuttle ready, right_?" Viver boldly strategized.

"_I'm firing her up right now. Get-away-car is waiting, just fucking get your asses down here and forget about it. It's over. We've_ failed," Duo tried to hammer it in.

"_No, we haven't_!" She yelled. "_Beck screwed up, but we can still fix this! Grace_?"

"_I can do it_," he asserted.

"_Don't, it won't even work. The calculations were precise and we didn't finish setting all of the charges, it won't be enough to destabilize the satellite_," Duo tried to reason with them with a calmer tone.

"_But the explosion will be strong enough to wipe out everyone on board, at least that's something_," Grace supplied. There was a moment of silence and Grace and Viver might have shared a look, before they decided: "_We're doing it_."

"_No! Grace! Fuck_!" For Duo not to use Grace's preferred nickname meant he was really pissed and panicking.

Heero remained calm. Grace could try whatever he wanted to enable his own ambition, but as soon as Heero and Beck would be down there with the other two, Heero planned to rip that detonator out of the plastic compound, rendering it useless.

He knew it had been a mistake to bring them along. Beck was too nervous, Viver was too insubordinate and Grace was too arrogant. Heero blamed himself more than he blamed Duo, even though it had been Duo's suggestion. But blame didn't matter in the moment; they just had to get out of there, so he could yell at all of them later.

Duo was already yelling. First ordering Grace to keep his paws off the timer, then begging him, then – realizing he would be disobeyed no matter what – he tried to help Grace by walking him through the procedure, so he wouldn't accidentally trigger the detonator. The stubborn agent wasn't responding to anything Duo was saying at that point and neither was Viver, making Heero suspect that they had taken out their earpieces and everything Duo was saying was pointless, but his co-captain kept trying.

Heero listened to his partner's desperation, while his own sense of urgency – and emergency – started to border on anxiety and fear. The feelings were a heavy brick in his stomach, but he couldn't let that slow him down.

Then Duo addressed him: "_Heero, where are you two_?"

"Almost there, we're on-" He was cut off by an explosion from below. He and Beck were thrown back by a wall of displaced air before they felt the heat of the flames licking up the walls. The entire metal structure vibrated under them as they landed on their backs. The breath had been knocked out of him and it took a moment before Heero could scramble up on his feet and pull Beck up by the front of his suit as well. He patted out the flame on his shoulder; the preventer insignia had caught fire, but the space suit prevented Beck from getting burned.

On the other side of the open space, where the explosion had occurred at the bottom, the left side of the skeleton of walkways was collapsing in on itself and the grates they stood on shook with the force of the tons of steel coming down. The lower floors pulling down the upper floors, starting an unstoppable domino effect.

The two agents were thrown off balance again when the entire structure on their side bent and warped and the walkway they were standing on listed forward. They caught themselves on the railing. The creaking and groaning of twisting steel filled Heero's ears, drowning out the sounds of Duo's curses and demands to know if everyone was okay.

"_Status report_!" Heero heard Duo scream when everything else went silent all of sudden. But he couldn't respond. He flinched at the sound of loud bangs. It sounded like gunfire but he knew it were heavy-duty bolts popping out of the wall – some of them with so much force that they might as well have been bullets.

"_I'm coming, Heero! I'm coming for you_!" Duo promised.

Above them there was a succession of explosions; one floor after another. The fire spread through the corridors and distant screams were heard. Whatever Grace had done, he had triggered the detonation of the three charges he had set on the upper levels earlier and the force of the explosions blew the three missiles off balance. They tilted to the left and pulled on the brackets connected to the side of the atrium that hadn't come down in the initial blast – the side Heero and Beck were on.

The chain of reaction happened too fast to be able to respond. The metal walkway they were standing on was torn away from the wall and flipped upside down, flinging the two men over the edge.

The free fall was long enough for Heero's brain to unhelpfully supply: "This is going to hurt".

His body crashed onto the floor. After that, he remembered nothing; only pain.


	4. Chapter 4

**Please don't be mad.**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part IV – Duo's POV**

A broken body lay in the bed. A broken spirit sat in the chair, keeping vigil.

Monitors beeped. Machines whirred. The smell of disinfectant and death hung in the air. In another room an agent whimpered, in constant pain from his burns, accompanied by the broken whispers of his mother who tried to comfort him. Down the hall nurses spoke in hushed French. Duo couldn't understand a word they were saying anyway; he had never bothered to learn the language.

L2 had been the colony closest to RS42 when Duo had narrowly escaped the explosion that depressurized the entire resource satellite. The shuttle he had managed to commandeer was slow and he burned through too much fuel pushing the dated rocket thrusters to full speed to outmaneuver a second shuttle that had been on his tail, firing at him while he piloted a defenseless cargo ship. Thankfully the other shuttle had soon given up on the chase, to avoid getting caught in the Preventer web that would close around the satellite.

Duo had barely managed to get them to dock 20-A on L2, crossing the last of the distance on fumes. His landing was more like a controlled crash than anything else, with sparks flying behind them as there was no fuel left to engage the reverse thrusters, and he had to use the friction against the bottom of the landing strip to slow the ship down before it would collide with the back wall of the hangar at speed.

The Preventer agency had an office on L2 – like they had an office on all of the five major colonies – including a Preventer medical center for emergency care of agents after a mission. During the flight Duo had instructed mission control on L1 to coordinate with the medical staff on the colony and by the time his shuttle came to a stop at the bottom of the dock, a medical team was waiting for them to rush them to the center.

That was three days ago.

Duo's injuries were minor and he wouldn't even let the nurses tend to him until after they had wheeled Heero into the operating room and there was nothing he could do for his partner anymore anyway.

The nurses had been fretting over him, worried about grave injuries. There was so much blood. They didn't know that none of it was Duo's.

He had a broken hand and glass shards between the knuckles. He had a deep puncture wound in his thigh from when a mechanic had stabbed him with a screw-driver, trying to stop him from stealing a shuttle. He had two cracked ribs from a big guy who had managed to land a kick in his chest. His lungs burned from smoke-inhalation and he'd been walking around with an oxygen mask for the first twenty four hours.

It was nothing. He was fine.

Only he wasn't fine.

Heero had been in and out of surgery so often the past three days that Duo had barely been able to be at his side and that didn't help to calm him down. Eventually an orderly caught him off guard and before the pain of the needle in his upper arm registered, his body was already dropping to the floor, one arm swinging in vain to defend himself and his right to freak out when they carted Heero beyond his reach again. He'd slept for six hours. Heero's latest surgery lasted nine.

He was still drowsy from the administered drugs and he sat leaned to one side, with his elbow on the armrest and his chin in his palm, propping up his heavy head. His eyes burned but he forced himself to keep them open. When he slept, he had nightmares, he had discovered. He was used to nightmares, but he had also gotten used to waking up from them and knowing that the memories were far behind him. When he woke up now, he was still right in the middle of the nightmare.

Outside the L2 lights simulated daylight, but inside the room it was dark. The shutters on the windows were closed and lamps were switched off. Only the screens of the monitors glowed and painted every shape with cool shades of color.

Heero was kept in a medially induced coma and intubated as he went in and out of surgery again and again. The medical team flown in from L4 worked tirelessly to fix him to the best of the abilities of modern medicine. Still though, Duo couldn't peel himself away from his bedside. What if Heero did wake up and he'd be alone? Duo was already burdened with more guilt than he could stand. The thought of his partner waking up alone, not knowing where he was and what had happened – waking up trapped in that broken body – wrecked Duo.

The hours ticked by. Duo was unaware of the passage of time. Some seconds seemed like they lasted hours. While some hours flew by in seconds.

A nurse came every thirty minutes to check on the patient and record his stats. After a change in the shift, a new nurse came and the first three times he came into the room, he asked Duo if he wanted anything – water, coffee, food, something to help him sleep. But by the fourth time he had caught on that Duo wouldn't even look up from the spot on the floor that he'd been staring at to acknowledge the nurse's presence, so he stopped asking.

It became dark outside as well and on his next visit the night-nurse decided to switch on one of the overhead lights, to aid his own work.

Duo's phone lay on the nightstand, next to the vase with a bouquet of flowers that had been sent. Not much had been left of the bouquet after Duo had come back to the room and had seen it next to the empty bed – Heero was in the OR again. He had grabbed the arrangement of roses and dahlia's and had started ripping the flowers from the stems. What good would flowers do? He had thought to himself, while hot tears streamed down his face.

The flowers had been sent by Quatre. The former Sandrock pilot and the former Heavyarms pilot were not on L4 – where they had their home – but were on earth for a business trip and they couldn't get a seat on the next few shuttle launches, so they wouldn't be able to come up to the colony for a few days. Some problems couldn't be solved by throwing money at it. If the shuttles are fully booked, they're fully booked.

Other than the Preventers and the former Gundam pilots, no one knew what had happened yet. Otherwise, Relena would have surely been able to throw her political power around to reach them on L2.

Duo wasn't entirely alone on L2 to look after Heero. WuFei had flown out immediately. However, Duo didn't see much of the Major; while coordinating Heero's medical care, he also had the disastrous aftermath of a failed mission to deal with. Duo didn't mind. WuFei never had much of a comforting effect on him anyway.

Despite the damage to the entirely depressurized resource satellite, the structure itself had remained sound and RS42 was still in orbit around the earth. No debris had come loose to cause danger to the other colonies. Recovery teams had flown to RS42 to reclaim the nuclear warheads, but they were already gone. The data systems had been wiped.

63 Individual human remains had been salvaged at that point. One of them was Isra Beck, recovered from under the misshapen steel. The bodies of Haytham Grace and Havana Viver would never be found; they had been obliterated in the first explosion they had triggered.

With them both dead and with their families not even having a body to bury, Duo couldn't be mad at them like he wanted to be. He could only be mad at himself. They shouldn't have been there to begin with. He shouldn't have let them come along on the mission.

The American agent plucked at the skin of his dry lips, drawing blood. He sucked on the small wound until it stopped bleeding, familiar with the metallic taste.

"… Du-…?"

Duo's body went rigid at the sound of a gravelly voice trying to speak his name. He scooted the chair closer to the bed and he put his hands on Heero's shoulder to let him feel that he was there. "Heero?" He squeaked.

Heero's eyes were rolling under the lids. Then his whole face scrunched up as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

"Heero?" Duo reached for the little remote dangling off the edge of the bed and he pressed the red button to alert the night nurse.

Suddenly blue eyes flew open with panic and his body started to convulse. With uncoordinated fingers he grabbed the tube coming out of his mouth and he scratched at the neck brace. His face went red and his eyes became bloodshot as he struggled against the air being pumped into him and he felt like he was choking. Frightful eyes looked up at Duo, begging for help.

Duo got up from his seat and put his hands on both shoulders to push him into the mattress to subdue him as much as he could. "Heero, it's okay. It's okay. You're intubated. It's fine. Try to calm down. Let it breathe for you, it's okay."

The male nurse appeared in the doorway in response to his call and when he realized the patient had woken up, he quickly went to get support.

Heero slowly calmed down. His arms dropped back down onto the mattress as his sides. His gaze remained locked with Duo's. He never even blinked.

Duo put a hand on his cheek and stroked his thumb back and forth. "Shhh… Shhh…"

"… Hu…ssss," the Japanese agent trained, tears welling up in his eyes. "Hur-sss…" His brows furrowed in frustration.

"I know it hurts… Don't try to speak. It's going to be okay," he promised him, and it felt like a soul-crushing lie. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek, careful to avoid the mouthpiece that kept his jaws open and the oxygen tube in place.

The French team of doctors and nurses poured into the room. Duo straightened up but maintained his post at the bedside. He wasn't going to step away unless it was absolutely necessary. Relief washed over his body and his shoulders slumped when his helpless, searching gaze landed on a familiar face. "Thank God, you're here."

"Shuttle docked forty minutes ago." Sally Po offered him a smile and rushed to the opposite side of the hospital bed. She leaned over to look into Heero's eyes, but Heero didn't tear his gaze away from the other agent. "Heero?" She tried. "Heero, can you hear me?"

Finally he looked at her and an expression of alarm settled on his features.

"Hey, it's been a while," she said lightly, smiling at him as if nothing was wrong. As if her mere presence didn't make it clear he was in bad shape. Without glancing at her staff she ordered: "Cinq millilitres de sodium thiopental, s'il vous plait." She extended her hand back and a nurse placed a syringe in her gloved palm. She inspected the syringe and flicked it with her finger to check for air bubbles. "I'm going to put you under now. You won't feel any pain anymore. You'll sleep and in the meantime we'll fix you up. Sound good?"

Heero didn't respond but Sally didn't need him to. His blue eyes followed her hand as she brought the syringe to the IV tube connected to the back of his hand.

"This is going to feel like putting your hand in hot water, but by the time the feeling is up to your shoulder, you'll be asleep," she informed with a calm, even tone. She inserted the needle into the IV valve and squeezed the clear liquid into him.

"I'll be right here with you, Heero," Duo promised his partner, causing him to look at him again.

Heero blinked once. Twice. Then his eyelids fell shut and he didn't open them again.

Duo petted his hand through Heero's hair, not caring that it was greasy.

Sally spoke to the nurses and the two other doctors. They reviewed Heero's stats, reading off the different monitors. The computers beeped with the press of each button when some settings were changed.

The crowd of people shuffled out of the room, but Sally stayed behind and watched them for a moment. "I figured," she said.

"Hm?" Duo tore his gaze away from the relaxed, pale face of his Co-Captain, put at ease by the thought that he would be free from pain in his dreamless sleep.

"When you were at the Academy, the way you spoke of him… I figured there was something going on between the two of you."

Duo didn't care that she had put the puzzle pieces together. There was no point to worrying about that anymore. All he could focus on was Heero's health and what they could do improve it.

"Don't worry, I won't tell. We'll consider it doctor-patient confidentiality."

"I wasn't worried," he said. "Not about that at least… Not anymore…" He sat back down in his seat, realizing how weak his body was since he'd been neglecting it for the past few days.

Sally nodded.

"I'm so glad you're here. He needs you."

"I came as soon as I could. But there was a lot of work to be done at the research facility first. I had to stay there to oversee the work and coordinate the transport of all the equipment."

"I understand…" He took a deep breath before he dared to ask: "So what happens now?"

"The work goes on," Sally simply replied. "It won't be easy. It won't be quick."

"Is the medical coma really necessary for the entire duration?" Duo wondered, feeling antsy and unsure about not being to communicate any of the process ahead with his partner.

"It's for the best. He doesn't need to be awake for this; for the pain, for the disorientation of going in and out of surgery. Besides," she tried with an amused tone, "I have a feeling he wouldn't be the most cooperative patient to get to stay in bed for as long as we need him to."

Duo returned a weak smile, knowing it was true. Heero was impatient, most of all with himself, and he wouldn't tolerate the limitations of his body in the current state it was in. He asked a question before he had carefully considered if he really wanted to know the answer. "Will he be himself again?"

Sally sat down on the foot end of the bed with a sigh and looked at him the way Duo imagined a loving mother would look at her child when she was about to tell him something they didn't want to hear.

"Don't," he stopped her before she could start and he cast his gaze down to his feet, unable to look her in the eye and unable to look at the limp body on the bed. "I don't need to know. Not yet." He put his hand over his stomach, feeling nauseous and he waited for it to go away. "Just promise me you'll do the best you can."

"I'll do the best I can," she readily vowed. "Just like you did the best you could do."

He snapped his head up to look at her with doubtful, watery eyes.

"You did your best, Duo," she assured him. "There was nothing else you could have done for him."

A sob escaped him – the most pathetic sound he had ever made – and it opened the floodgates. He buried his face in his palms and wept uncontrollably. He didn't want to cry, especially not in someone else's presence. He was mortified, but he couldn't stop himself and the more he thought of his own shame and selfishness, the harder he cried.

Sally sat there and didn't react. She didn't look away nor did she offer any comforting touches or words knowing both would be worthless and her impassiveness was exactly what he needed to get a grip on himself. He choked: "He begged me not to. He told me to leave him there."

"You saved him."

"Not all of him!" He laughed darkly at the inappropriate remark. He wiped away his tears and sat back in the chair, feeling even more tired after his emotional outburst. He rubbed his fingers along his mouth, resisting the urge to pick at his dry, scabbed lips.

"You saved him," Sally repeated. "And now it's my turn to save him." Sally sounded so sure of herself, Duo wondered how much of it was genuine confidence in her abilities and how much of it was an act for his benefit, to keep him from having a mental breakdown.

"I don't mean to interrupt," a deep voice spoke.

The two of them turned their heads to face the man standing in the doorway.

Major WuFei Chang.

"Doctor Po," Chang greeted his ex-fiancé stiffly with a courteous nod. "I was informed of your arrival."

"Major Chang," she fired back. Impressive how she could make a title sound like an insult.

"I'd like an updated report on agent Yuy's medical status. If you could please accompany me to another room, so we can discuss his recovery and rehabilitation in private." He gestured out into the hallway.

"Yes, Sir, of course." She slid off the hospital bed and told Duo: "I'll be back to check on him soon, okay?"

The agent nodded gratefully.

"I'm going to monitor his stats for the next five hours and if he's still stable by then we're going to get him ready for transport. The medical shuttle is already on standby at 20-C. You boys will be home soon."

"Thank you."

She gave him one more calm smile before she smoothed a hand down the front of her white coat and followed Chang out into the hallway.

Duo leaned forward in his seat and folded his arms on the edge of the mattress, next to the pillow and he rested his chin on his wrists. "Hear that?" He whispered optimistically in Heero's ear. "We're going home. Sally is going to fix you up and you'll be good as new."

He wasn't lying for Heero's sake, he knew his partner couldn't hear him; he was lying to himself.

* * *

**If you need something light-hearted to cleanse your palate after this short but heavy chapter, check out my first entry for the GWCU.**

**But leave your predictions first!**


	5. Chapter 5

"**3\. Chapter length will vary widely"**

**\- ExecutiveShrimp, **_**GROUNDED, Part I**_

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part V – Heero's POV **

He was being carried.

…

Exhausted metal groaned under too much pressure.

…

"CLEAR!"

…

"I'm going to put you under now."

…

"Sally is going to fix you up," Duo said.

…

The pain in his feet was excruciating, especially in his left foot.

…

"CLEAR!"

…

Duo was screaming his name.

…

Heero was screaming Duo's name.

No. Not his name.

"Don't!" He was screaming: "Don't!"

…

"CLEAR!"

…

"We're going home."

…

"CLEAR!"

…

"Please, don't!"

….

Heero cracked his eyes open. His vision was blurred and the room was dark and it alarmed him that he was not able to investigate his surroundings. Where was he? Where was the nearest exit? What could he use as a weapon to defend himself?

He couldn't even move.

He closed his eyes again and took a moment to calm his mind.

…

The next time he opened his eyes, his vision was still unclear but he stayed off panic and focused on whatever he could deduce about his environment.

It was daytime now. The windows were to his left. He was facing a white wall. No, it was the ceiling. He could make out the shape of rectangular light bars, but they weren't switched on. Two machines beeped on either side of him. One had a constant rhythm, beeping once a second, the other matched his heartbeat. He wiggled his fingers and felt the coarse material of the sheets of the medical center at the Preventer building. He'd been in their beds before. His body was heavy and tired, he felt like he was sinking into the mattress even though he knew the mattresses here to be hard.

He tried to move but the most he could do was shift his arms. His thighs twitched with exertion. His mouth was dry and swallowing was painful, like swallowing shards of glass. He felt the crustiness on the inner corners of his eyes, alerting him to the fact that he'd been asleep for a long time. That would also explain the weak state of his body.

He had a headache. His throat was sore. The IV in the inner elbow of his left arm irritated. His penis ached from the catheter inserted into the urethra. The big toe on the left foot throbbed.

After blinking a few times his vision cleared and he could make out the individual panels of the ceiling, positively identifying it as the ceiling of the fourth floor medical center in the L1 Preventer tower.

He turned his head to left and looked out the window. He saw the training field – a team running along the track – and trees and the inner wall of the colony.

He twisted his head to the right and he saw a figure in a chair positioned closely to the bed. The long braid that draped over the shoulder and down the chest was messy but unmistakable. After another minute of blinking his eyes he could identify Duo's pale features and see that his eyes were closed as he slept; uncomfortably slumped in the chair, with his hands tucked into the pockets of his Preventer issue training hoodie.

Heero was thirsty but he didn't want to wake his partner. The American had dark bags under his eyes, it looked like he needed the sleep. Heero looked down at the shape of his body under the itchy blanket. His legs were heavy and his toe throbbed painfully but he was able to ignore it. What he couldn't ignore was that he could barely move. It was disconcerting. His muscles had atrophied, indicating he had been in a coma for an extended period. His thirst had to be remedied and since he couldn't muster the strength himself, he knew he needed help.

He resented that idea enough to remain quiet. He fought with himself and eventually acknowledged that his body required care and he had no choice.

"Du-…" He tried but his voice was so soft he could barely hear himself. He cleared his throat, which hurt, and then tried again: "Du-… Du-o… Duo."

The man stirred. His eyes slowly opened.

Suddenly, Heero was happy to see him and he didn't even understand why. "Duo."

His co-captain flinched and straightened up in his seat. He fixed a shocked gaze on Heero and a smile appeared on his face, yet he looked sad somehow, but Heero couldn't explain it. Maybe he was seeing things wrong.

"He~y, buddy."

Heero's mouth tightened at the nickname. He knew something was seriously wrong whenever Duo called him "buddy". "Pal" was fine, "Ro" was fine, "baby" was fine – "baby" was usually a precursor to something great, actually – even "asshole" was fine. "Buddy" was not fine.

"How are you feeling. Are you in pain?"

He considered telling him about his aches and pains and how heavy his legs felt, but it wasn't a priority. "Thirsty," he answered. His voice was so gravelly it was unrecognizable.

Duo nodded. Before he got up he pressed a button and Heero resented it because he knew it meant the nurses would come in soon to bother them. Duo walked across the room to a sink on the other side and he filled a plastic cup with water and carried it over.

Heero wanted to lift his hand off the bed to accept the cup, but even just raising the limb a few inches off the mattress made him tremble. He hated his helplessness, but Duo never made him feel bad about it.

A nurse popped her head through the doorway. "You-… Oh, he's awake." Just like that, she was gone again.

Duo pressed a button on the remote for the bed and held it down to raise Heero up into a seated position. Once he was upright he put the cup to Heero's lips and let him drink, taking the cup away between gulps to force him to go slow and take breaths.

"More?" He asked, retreating the empty cup.

"Yes." He was sounding better already.

The other agent got up again and repeated the process.

Halfway through the second cup, a doctor and two nurses interrupted them and Heero was surprised when he recognized the doctor as Sally Po.

Just like "buddy", that was a bad sign, he knew.

She smiled and came to stand at the foot of the bed and waited for him to finish his drink. "That must feel good."

Duo put the cup away on the bedside table.

"Yes," Heero replied.

She stared at him, scrutinizing him for an uncomfortable period of time. "You look good."

"I doubt that very much." He could smell himself and he assumed he looked as bad as he smelled.

"You look relaxed; rested," she clarified.

"I should be, considering how long I slept."

Sally quirked an eyebrow at him. "Did you have time to talk with Duo?" She looked at the other agent, who shook his head.

"No. I don't know how long I've been out, but I can tell it's been a while. You're not going to make me sleep some more, are you? I don't want to sleep any more" He tried to joke. He was never good at being funny, but Duo enjoyed his efforts. He always smiled at him.

He wasn't smiling now.

Sally, however, did smile.

Duo tried a joke of his own: "I don't want you to sleep any more either. Contrary to popular belief, you are actually better company to be around when conscious."

The man still wasn't smiling. The way his mouth screwed up, wasn't a smile. It was a grimace.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Sally asked.

Heero was quiet as he took his time to search his memory. Everything was a bit jumbled up. He knew bits and pieces – words, feelings and sounds. He couldn't discern any chronological order to them, or even what was real and what was part of comatose hallucinations. His last, clear memory was…

"_You're cold and wet," Duo pointed out, his voice laced with concern._

"_Nnnn, I'm sorry." He tried to push himself up and get away from Duo so he wouldn't have to deal with a wet mop of hair on his chest, but he honestly couldn't move._

"_Go to sleep, Heero. It's okay."_

Heero blinked and hoped he didn't blush. He couldn't tell her that, she mustn't know that he had been sleeping with – and '_sleeping with_' – Duo; he would get grounded. He traced his steps further back, to the first non-incriminating point he could remember. "Duo helping me finish my mission report for F-177 and then going home, to my apartment." He knew to lie about that last part.

Duo and Sally shared a look that made Heero both curious and concerned.

"Is that bad?" He wondered self-consciously.

"… Maybe it's for the best…" Duo mused aloud and he looked down into his lap.

"I failed a mission," Heero surmised and he clenched his hands into fists.

Duo reached for his fist and covered it with both hands, stopping it from trembling. "You were brilliant," he insisted. "_I_ failed _you_."

Heero's entire body went rigid when he remembered an upcoming protection detail. "Relena."

One of Duo's hands moved to his shoulder to put him at ease. "She's fine. We weren't assigned to her detail."

"What happened?" Heero demanded. He needed to know what had gone wrong. Whatever mission they had been assigned to, it had failed. He needed to know what he had done wrong.

Duo's jaw clenched shut.

"Let's not focus on the past right now," Sally suggested with a tone that left no room for argument. "You are going to need to focus your energy on moving forward. You have a long process of recovery ahead of you."

He shot a look her way. "Recovery from what? How long was I in a coma?"

"Eight and a half weeks," Sally replied bluntly.

He nodded. "I've been in a coma before," he stated. It had been during the war, after he had opted to self-detonate to settle a conflict, and Trowa had been taking care of him afterwards. "Not this long, but I know I'll recover quickly."

"You have more than muscle atrophy to deal with. The rehabilitation will be intense. It will demand a lot from you, both physically and mentally."

"Why? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing is wrong with you," Duo rushed to say.

Sally seemed reluctant to answer Heero's question, which made his heart race and the monitor beeped erratically in accordance. "Both-…" She shook her head at herself and steeled her expression.

"Both your legs have been amputated at mid-thigh."

The monitor beeped faster.

_No._

With shocked eyes Heero looked down at himself, only to be confused by the sight. Just as earlier, when he looked down his body, he could see the shape of his torso, his legs and his feet pointing up under the blanket. Not only could see his legs, he could feel them too. He could feel the pain in his toe. "That's not funny."

"I'm sorry, Heero," she said, but she wasn't apologizing for a crass, misplaced joke. She grabbed the blanket and pulled it down his legs, all the way down to bundle it up at the foot of the bed.

White bandages were wrapped around his thighs, but stretched out before him were two normal looking legs; with golden-toned skin and dark hairs. Looking at them closely however, Heero realized they didn't look like his legs, which was an odd realization, and there was something off about the toes, in the way they were tightly sandwiched together.

_No._

"The skeleton of the prosthetics is Gundanium," Sally explained. "Both your femurs have been replaced with Gundanium implants and they protrude out the stumps so the prosthetics can be attached and detached. The shell, which gives the legs a natural shape, is comprised of panels of a carbon fiber and titanium hybrid, with openings at the back of the knee and around the ankle joints to allow for full mobility. The shell is covered with a synthetic skin, dyed to match your skin tone and with real human hairs hand-punched into the cover to give a realistic look and authentic feel."

_No._

"They are the epitome of the current medical technology. As you know, I've been working on improving prosthetics for soldiers and field agents in particular for the past four years and trials with earlier models have yielded great successes. Once you complete the rehabilitation course, these legs will function just like real legs, with the same mobility and precision as any average person."

As any average person.

_No._

He stared at her, watched her lips move with calculated precision and tried to focus on her words as she spoke fast and monotone, like delivering a rehearsed speech. Or more like a sales pitch.

"We have planted an action- receptor in the primary motor cortex, specifically in the area responsible for leg muscle control, which we identified for you specifically through a brain mapping procedure. The action-receptor is a glass tube the size of a grain of rice, lined with electrodes. Over the course of the past seven weeks, you're brain cells have grown into the tube, connecting the neurons with the electrodes. With extensive practice, the motor cortex will adapt and through synaptic firing the brain will be able to activate the electrodes and cause a corresponding motion in the prosthetics."

_No._

He looked at Duo, but his partner wasn't even paying attention to Sally; he looked like he had heard the lecture a million times before – and that it still made no sense to him.

"It's state of the art, only the best for our Preventer agents," Sally assured him. "We've had great success stories with these leg prosthetics and the action-receptor technology is so accurate that even one of my patients who has been fitted with a lower arm prosthetic last year has regained complete motor control; his handwriting is exactly the same as pre-amputation." She continued on excitably until Duo shot her a look that somehow caused her to fall silent.

The two of them regarded him expectantly. Duo was holding his breath.

Heero studied the motionless, lifeless legs. He wanted to move them, but he couldn't, he could only pull at them, but they were heavy and that hurt. It hurt in his pelvis as well, at the hip joints, where the Gundanium bone implants had been attached.

"It will take a while before you can move them, but you will," Sally said, reading his frustration.

"How long?"

"It's different for every individual," she disclaimed, before she informed him: "Our other patient with double leg amputation was able to walk after two months. But his amputation was below the knee. That's… quite different. Double the joints replaced means more than twice the challenge. The ankle is a passive joint, on top of that and-"

"No," he shook his head as she misinterpreted his question. "Not how long until I can walk. How long until I can go back into the field? Whatever mission we've failed, there is obviously a lot that needs to be set right."

Sally turned to Duo for guidance, but Duo dropped his head down and his eyes wouldn't meet anybody's. She said cautiously: "Let's take it one step at a time, okay?" Her attempt to placate him was agitating and offensive. "You gotta walk before you can run."

"How long did it take that patient to get back into the field?"

"Heero…" She sighed. "He didn't go back into the field. He can't."

_No._

"Alright." He pursed his lips. "How long did it take any of your other patients?" He needed at least some kind of timeframe to estimate his own recovery – which was usually half the time it would take anybody else.

Her gaze flitted to Duo again, but he was of no help. "They-… They're all grounded. None of them have been able to get cleared for field duty."

_No._

"Did they even _try_?" He asked with a scoff.

"Some of them. They couldn't pass The Twelve."

He hardened his gaze at her. "But you've been working on making prosthetics for agents and soldiers specifically. What good are these prosthetics if we can't go back into the field with them?"

"In spite of the breakthroughs we've had, further development is still necessary and that takes time," she defended, her words were quick, from nervousness or irritation, Heero couldn't tell. "The prosthetics provide our wounded agents with quality of life, it is our way to repay them for their sacrifices. Of course my hopes are that someday the technology will have advanced to a point where agents could get back into the field if that's what they want – after such _trauma_," she stressed. "But we're not there yet. The prosthetics function at 100% of average human ability, but a Preventer agent needs to function far above of what a regular person is capable of and the technology just isn't there yet. The legs are heavy, causing an enormous strain on the body if you were to push it the way an agent is required to push his body and your reaction time is a crucial couple of milliseconds slower because the signal has to pass from the action-receptor to the prosthetic's receiver."

"I'm strong enough and I'm fast enough," Heero asserted. He didn't like her looking at him like she pitied him; like she pitied him for believing in something that was supposedly impossible. "I can do it."

She shook her head. "I know why you would believe that right now. But you will soon understand the limitations of your body. This is no longer the body of 'the perfect soldier'."

_No._

Duo finally joined in on the conversation again, only to look at Heero with pained eyes and all he said was: "I'm sorry, Heero. You have no choice but to accept it."

_No._


	6. Chapter 6

**GROUNDED**

**Part VI – Duo's POV**

"He doesn't remember anything?" WuFei verified, still sounding perplexed although both Duo and Sally had told him several times at that point.

"It's all gone," Duo confirmed and it was the only thing that offered him some comfort in the horrible situation they were in. At least he wouldn't have to remember that nightmare. Although it didn't absolve Duo of any guilt.

"A lot of it will probably come back to him," Sally cut in. "But it's not unusual for some of the retrograde amnesia to be permanent. The brain has its way of shielding itself from trauma."

Duo nodded. He squeezed his hands between his thighs and secretly crossed his fingers.

The three of them were in Major Chang's office, up on the twelfth floor. Heero was still downstairs in the medical bay on the fourth. He had been there for over seven weeks and he would stay there for a while to come. For all intents and purposes, he was paralyzed at the moment and rendered immobile. As much as the Japanese man resented it, he couldn't take care of himself, so he had to let others take care of him. That alone would soon prove to be a battle. He'd only been awake for six hours and already he was starting to become a handful for the nursing staff.

"He intends to come back into the field," Sally said.

Chang snorted. "I admire his determined mindset, but he ought to realize that will not be possible. He has to prepare himself for that. Such disappointment can be more crippling than his physical limitations."

Duo idly sat by as Chang and Po discussed Heero's rehabilitation plan and Sally spoke with high praise of the physical therapist that was coming up from earth to assist Heero during the process. Every possible resource would be made available to him to aid him during his recovery, regardless of the costs. Chang and Une had had a meeting about the financial repercussions and she agreed that money was not an issue they needed to take into account. Each prosthetic leg alone cost a fortune, with the overall costs of the dozens of surgeries he had underwent, including brain surgery to plant the action-receptor, which acted like a remote control for the legs, the transportation fees and the rehabilitation, everything tallied up to a dizzying number.

All that money to make Heero complete again, but still not enough to make him _himself_ again. Some things money couldn't buy. Duo – growing up poor – used to believe money could solve everything, as long as you had enough of it, but he knew better now.

As they talked about concerns he couldn't be bothered with – such as the political and legal ramifications of three perished agents - he thought of the mission, like he had so many times over the past weeks. He felt like he was still sitting in the bulkhead of that shuttle, too far away from anyone to be able to help. He felt useless, like he had been in those crucial moments. He remembered hearing the explosion in his left ear and the following static as the result of Haywire's and Viver's headset getting destroyed in the flames.

Everything had gone so horribly wrong. The mistakes compounded into catastrophe. But it had all started with one mistake, one poor decision that lay at the root of everything: Duo letting the three inexperienced agents coming into the field with them. At the time he thought he was making the right call, but he shouldn't have trusted himself to be able to make that decision unbiased.

Three people had paid for Duo's mistake with their lives. And Heero continued to pay for Duo's mistake. The wry fact was how unfair it was that Duo himself had escaped unscathed. It should have been him in that hospital bed. No, it should have been him in the body bag.

He had seen Beck's body after it had been recovered and shipped to L1 to hand over to his next of kin. The face was unrecognizable as Beck. The body was unrecognizable as human. The skull had been concaved, the features of his face pressed into a crater of exposed bone and brain matter. The ribcage had been crushed and flattened, with the pattern of the metal grates pressed into the flesh and even into the sternum. The sheer weight of one of the steel beams that had fallen on top of him had separated his upper body from his lower body. His lower body had been cut into several pieces by the recovery team, to get it out from underneath the rubble. They hadn't been able to free his right foot.

All that had been found of Haywire and Viver were pieces of space suit, the burnt remnants of his backpack and the metal clasps from her utility belt. At their proximity to the explosion, a blast that powerful turns the human body into red mist. They had been arrogant and foolish, but neither deserved to meet their end like that.

"… What do I tell him?" Duo wondered out of nowhere, disrupting WuFei's and Sally's discussion.

"What do you mean?" The doctor asked.

"About… About Beck and the other two? About how I got him out?"

"I will debrief him," the Major said. "He will tell me all that he remembers per protocol – if he has started to remember anything at this point - and then I'll fill in the blanks for him."

Sally seemed hesitant and she carefully expressed her concerns: "I'm not sure filling him in on the details will be helpful to him right now. It appears he is still in shock from the news he got this morning; he hasn't even really come around to accept it yet. I'm afraid of the psychological consequences of telling him too much, too soon. Telling him about the mission could spark traumatic memories of the event and I don't think he is equipped to handle that."

"He needs to know what happened," WuFei argued, his tone strict and intimidating, but not to Sally. "He has the right to know what has happened to his body. You can't just tell a man both his legs have been amputated and then not answer his questions."

"Well, for starters," she sniped, "he hasn't even asked about what happened to his legs yet. And that's part of my point: he's in shock, none of this has fully registered yet. He won't benefit from being bombarded with gruesome details. And I'm not saying we shouldn't answer his questions and pretend like nothing has happened – which Heero is doing right now, by the way, as a coping mechanism – my point is, let's wait for a psychological evaluation before we decide to give him a copy of Duo's mission report."

"Oh, a psych-eval, brilliant!" WuFei bit at his ex. "Let me pull up the reports of his mandatory psych-evals for the past two years…" He pulled a stack of Heero's files towards him, located a blue folder and started flipping through it. "Denial to cooperate. Denial to cooperate… Denial to cooperate," he read as he leafed through the therapists' notes. "The only reason he hasn't been previously suspended for his 'mute condition' during his psychological evaluations is because thanks to ambiguous phrasing in the Preventer protocol, he is only ever required to be _present_; not required to talk. And because he refuses to talk, no therapist has ever been able to diagnose him with anything, clearing him for duty by default." He bristled like an angry horse. "And Kurasawa let this go on without reporting it and letting HQ make the necessary adjustments to the protocol."

"He's not crazy!" Duo shouted in defense of his partner.

"I'm not saying he's crazy," Chang placated. "I'm saying he knows how to play the system if he doesn't want to cooperate. He's made it clear that he doesn't like the psych-evals, so of what use will they be now?"

"Maybe he'll realize this time around that he shouldn't do it because it's mandatory, but that he should do it because it would be good for him."

Duo was as skeptical as WuFei, but he liked the idea of not having to tell Heero much quite yet, so he sided with Sally on the issue and together they convinced the Major to hold off the debriefing. He used the protocol against the Major and pointed out to him that now that Heero had been officially grounded, based on his physical condition, he was not an active agent and therefore should not have access to information on a need-to-know mission.

The Chinese agent sent them out of his office so he could continue his work – muttering something about having a lot of phone calls to make - and Duo walked shoulder to shoulder with Sally to the elevator.

"You'll have your hands full," she remarked and pressed the down button on the panel on the wall. "You have two stubborn Gundam pilots to juggle."

Duo blinked at her. "Are you leaving?"

She offered him a sad smile and they stepped into the elevator. "I have to get back to my research team, Duo. There is nothing more I can do for Heero here. The best thing I can do to help him is to get back to work and keep pushing the progress on the technology."

He knew the day would come, but he had been dreading it. She had been his rock throughout the lengthy and emotional process. The few times she had flown back to Earth to coordinate with her research team had been lonely and stressful. He trusted Sally to keep a good eye on Heero, so he had only been able to sleep when she was around. He second-guessed every action of the other doctors and even the kind nurses. He had called her in the middle of the night on many occasions to verify if the night nurse really was acting on her orders. "When do you leave?"

"Friday."

The day after tomorrow. That felt like it would be too soon. "Are you sure you can leave? What if he-?"

"What if he, what?" She patted his arm reassuringly. "His condition has been stable over the past few weeks. The decision to prolong his medical coma was only to give his body as much time to heal as possible. The team here will take care of him if need be, but most of it Heero has to do himself now. We've done everything we could to save him, now it's up to him to save himself."

"What if he can't?" He countered. "He didn't want any of this. He told me to leave him there," he reminded her.

"If he can't, then he'll have you."

That didn't make Duo feel right, because he didn't trust himself anymore.

They stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall to Heero's private room. Duo could already hear the raised voice of a nurse.

"I told you, you need to eat," the nurse insisted.

"I'll eat when I'm hungry."

Duo and Sally walked through the door in time to see Heero push the tray of food away. The nurse had her hands on her hips and shot the two of them an exasperated look. Heero was already getting on her nerves and her shift had only started three hours ago.

Sally quirked an eyebrow at Duo, wordlessly reminding him about what she had said about Heero's and WuFei's stubbornness, before she stepped up to the bed and repositioned the tray in front of the patient. "Heero, you haven't had any solids in weeks. Now that we've disconnected the feeding tubes, you need to start eating again. Your body needs the nutrition."

"I'm fine." Heero shot a look at Duo, expecting him to back him up.

"Heero-"

Recognizing in his tone that Duo wasn't taking his side, Heero continued: "I know you all must have gotten used to being in charge of what happens to my body, but now that I'm awake, I'm in charge. I'm telling you: I'm not hungry."

Duo winced at the jab.

The nurse threw her hands up in the air and walked out of the room, telling Sally along the way: "I demand a reassignment."

"Talk to Faulkner, I'm leaving on Friday," Sally said, not about to get into scheduling.

"Tsk. Lucky."

Heero kept his glare fixed on the nurse until she had left the room. "I don't like her. She doesn't listen to me."

"Oh, trust me, Heero, she listens. She just doesn't obey and she'd not paid to obey your orders, so that's fine." Sally routinely checked his charts to keep herself updated on his stats. When she noted no significant or alarming changes, she announced that she was going home for the night and instructed Duo to get him to make Heero eat.

Duo weakly nodded in response. He had no idea about how to go about that, but he would try. He wished her a goodnight and then took a seat in the chair he had occupied for the past seven weeks. He crinkled his nose at the sight and smell of the hospital food, but he knew Heero wasn't a picky eater, so that wasn't the problem. "Why won't you eat?"

"… I can't."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't!"

Duo reeled back at the outburst.

Heero refused to meet his gaze. He rubbed his golden fingers against the white bedlinen. "My arms tremble too much when I raise them," he admitted through gritted teeth. "She was going to _feed_ me," he said, like it was the most severe insult.

"Oh."

"I don't want people to see me like this."

"Like what?"

"_Weak_," he spat. "… weakness during missions means death… weakness between missions means punishment…" he recited, almost imperceptibly rocking himself back and forth.

"You're not weak, Heero," Duo asserted.

The Japanese agent snorted.

"You're not weak. Not unless you choose to be," he said poignantly and finally Heero looked at him again. "Come on…" Duo scooted closer and grabbed the plastic spork off the tray. After some consideration, he decided to scoop up a mouthful of what appeared to be mashed potatoes. With a dead-serious expression he brought the spork to his partner's lips. "Show them how strong you can be."

The cobalt blue stare was defiant and Duo was about to give up when Heero parted his lips and allowed Duo to feed him. Neither of them said anything as Duo served him the mashed potatoes, the peas, some unidentifiable type of meat and half of the dessert. It reminded him of the rations they used to have during the war. It didn't look appetizing, or taste good, but it had all the nutrients they needed.

Duo was sensitive to his partner's vulnerability and shame, but he pretended like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be feeding a grown man like a helpless child. He simply listened and nodded as Heero firmly stated that Duo couldn't let anyone see him like this. He didn't want any of the other pilots, or even Relena to come see him. Duo knew he would have trouble keeping them at bay and he didn't think it was a good idea for Heero to be shutting everyone else out, but he wasn't about to argue with him.

When the patient had eaten as much as he could stomach, Duo put the lid back on the tray and put it aside. "I told Faulkner about your trouble sleeping from before. They are going to give you something to help."

"I don't want to go back into a coma."

Duo shook his head. "No, it's not like that. It's just something to help you fall asleep, for the night."

"Will you be here?"

The American smiled at the other. "If you want me to be."

"Maybe you shouldn't stay. It might be suspicious."

Duo sighed. Heero was still worried about getting grounded because of their relationship, not recognizing that it was a non-issue now. Sally was right, the gravity of his condition hadn't registered yet. "I've been here every day and every night. That's my bed right there." He pointed to the empty hospital bed across from Heero's. "Nobody here knows about us. We're partners – co-captains, I mean. Nobody questions that." That wasn't true. In fact, WuFei was probably the only one who hadn't figured it out yet.

Heero nodded, put at ease by his words.

"Are you in any pain?"

"My feet hurt," Heero said flatly, nothing in his tone indicated that he was aware of how odd that sounded. "And the catheter is starting to irritate."

"I suppose they'll take that out soon, now that you can relieve yourself."

"How am I supposed to evacuate my bowels? I will need to in a few hours."

"The same way you pee; in a bedpan."

Heero made a displeased face and Duo was sympathetic. Heero had been taking care of himself since he was a young teenager, it was an adjustment to relinquish control and be so dependent on others – on strangers, especially.

They were silent for a long time. Both looked out the windows as the colony slowly dimmed the lights to simulate nighttime. A team was running drills on the obstacle course in the spreading darkness.

"Have you really been here with me all this time?" Heero asked.

Duo blinked a few times to wake himself from his trance. "Of course. I haven't even gone home once. I had Quatre get me some of my things. He packed a bag for you as well, for when you woke up. I can help you change out of that hospital gown, if you want?"

"No, it's fine for now," his partner replied, pulling the hem of the sheets up further. "So Quatre does know about us?"

"I had to tell him." It hadn't been a conscious decision. As soon as the former Sandrock pilot arrived, Duo had collapsed in his arms. He'd spent days fighting – fighting with the doctors, fighting with the nurses, fighting with himself, fighting with the vending machine – when his eyes met that soothing shade of aquamarine, the anger had drained out of him and all he had been left with was his despair. He had cried and Quatre had let him. He had told the other pilot everything and Quatre listened. "He won't get us in trouble."

"I know. I trust him."

Duo smiled. It warmed his heart to know that Heero acknowledged all four of the other pilots as his friends, even though his relationship with each of them was very different.

"When was he here?"

"He's come by a couple of times. He was here last two weeks ago, when they were initially going to wake you up from your coma. But Sally had decided against it at the last-minute; she wanted to keep you under a little longer." He scrubbed his face with his palms. "I- I should at least call him. Even if you don't want to see him, I should let him know you're back."

"Am I back?" Heero wondered. With his hand he made a weak gesture down his body. "Is this me?"

"It's the part of you that matters."

Heero's face was unreadable. Duo prided himself on being able to interpret the minute facial expressions of his partner pretty accurately – certainly better than anyone else – but oftentimes the former Wing pilot was still a mystery to him. At times it was enthralling, but it could also be disconcerting. Duo couldn't help him if he didn't know what was going on in his head.

Doctor Faulkner, the head of the L1 medical team – forced to play second fiddle in his own medical wing while Sally Po was on colony – walked into the room, trailed by that same nurse from before. She spotted the nearly empty tray of food and she shot Duo a grateful look and rewarded him with a secretive 'thumbs up'. She seemed in better spirits even though it looked like she had failed to convince doctor Faulkner to assign her to a different patient.

"It must have been quite the day for you, agent Yuy," Faulkner said without looking up from the tablet he was holding. He scrolled through Heero's records. "Agent Maxwell informed me you've been dealing with chronic insomnia. Why have you never alerted your team's physician-… Doctor Maeda?"

"It hasn't been an issue I haven't been able to solve on my own."

"And how do you solve it?"

"I run."

"Hm. I see. For now," he motioned for the nurse to give him a small plastic cup with two pills and he reached them out to Heero, "take these."

Duo wanted to accept the pills for him, but Heero pressed his lips tightly together and raised his arm off the bed to take the cup. He rested his hand in his lap. The nurse brought him a cup of water, but she recognized his weakness and put the cup on the bedside table, right by Duo.

"Thank you," Duo said, knowing Heero wasn't going to.

"The pills will help you sleep; give them half an hour. You need your rest," Doctor Faulkner said. "I'll be on call tonight for emergencies. Doctor Ahi will be here for anything else."

Heero nodded curtly.

"Thank you, doctor." Over the weeks, Duo had learned to make an effort to be polite. It had taken a while.

Faulkner and the nurse left them alone again.

Heero popped the pills into his mouth and Duo put the cup to his lips and tilted it so he could take a drink to wash the pills down.

Duo got up to get himself a cup of water as well. Other than a hasty lunch that afternoon, he hadn't been tending to his body.

"Did you miss The Twelve because of me?"

"Don't worry about stuff like that." The last of the test rounds ended last week, but Duo hadn't even thought about it once. He had no interest in participating, for many good reasons, one of which being that he did not intend on going back into the field anyway, so he needn't work to renew his clearance status. As of last week, by default, he was officially grounded too.

"Did Beck pass?"

Duo froze at the question. He stared into Heero's eyes, waiting for the spark of a memory, but the blue orbs were unusually dull. He cleverly phrased his answer: "The entire team passed." He didn't want to have to tell Heero that, nowadays, "the entire team" meant only Swagger, Cho and Rubo; the surviving team members. Duo hadn't even seen them since they left for that doomed mission, but WuFei had mentioned in passing that he had taken charge of the team to keep the individuals from derailing their careers within the agency.

"Good. Are the results official yet?"

"Not yet. But they did good."

"Even Beck? On the obstacle course?"

"They all did good."

"Did Viver and Grace help him?"

Duo sighed. "Let's not talk about this. It's not important."

"They didn't, did they?" He surmised.

"They helped him," Duo said, carefully choosing his words to avoid lying, even though Heero wouldn't catch him in a lie anyway. "They helped him get ahead. Beck was very grateful."

"That's good."

"Hm."

"You should get back to work soon. There's no point in you wasting time waiting for me."

"_There's no point in you wasting time waiting for us."_ Duo squeezed his eyes shut and pushed away the memory before it would consume him. "You're my co-captain, I can't do anything without you."

"That's not true at all.. And you need to keep the team in shape. When I get back, I don't want to deal with the results of everyone's slacking."

Duo only nodded in response. He didn't want to tell his partner that the only capacity in which he could come back, would be in an administrative function. Duo didn't doubt that Heero could get back on his feet – what an awful pun – sooner than anyone else. Heero was the strongest person Duo had ever known, both physically and mentally, but the bar for a Preventer field agent was set too high. The hardships of trying and failing would break Heero's resolve at some point. He didn't know how the former pilot would handle it. His sense of self-worth was entirely linked to his physical prowess.

"I'm starting to feel tired," Heero announced.

Duo touched his hand to Heero's. "That's good."

"Are you spending the night here?"

"Yes."

"Where will you sleep? In that chair?"

Sally had warned Duo that forgetfulness was one of the side-effects from the sodium thiopental that had kept him in his medical coma. It was nothing to worry about and most of it would fade over the course of the next few days and within a few weeks his mental capacity would be back to normal. It was, however, not the cause of him not remembering the mission. The trauma was at the root of his retrograde amnesia; his inability to remember events that happened before his coma. Waking up out of a sodium thiopental coma was paired with anterograde amnesia, meaning he had trouble storing new information in the long-term memory.

With a light voice Duo answered: "I have my own bed, right there." He pointed across the room, bringing Heero's attention to the bed opposite of his, as he had done before. He didn't want to let Heero know that he had told him that already, he didn't want the forgetfulness to cause the Japanese agent additional frustration and distress.

"Can you recline the back-support?" Heero asked. His words were soft, his eyelids were at half-mast. "I think I'm… I think I'm falling asleep."

"Sure." Duo pressed the button on the remote to lower Heero into a horizontal position. He watched his face closely and noticed the minute twitches of his features as the movement of the bed disturbed his body, resulting in some pain. Once the bed was flat Duo helped Heero adjust the pillow and the sheets. "Are you comfortable?"

"My feet hurt."

Duo glanced down the prone body at the two prosthetic feet pointing up under the sheets. He wondered if Heero's forgetfulness could have gotten so bad that he had forgotten about the news Sally had broken to him that morning.

But then Heero asked, with comically dry inflection: "Did they at least make me taller?"

A short chuckle escaped Duo.

"I don't like that I'm shorter than you."

Duo scoffed. "Deal with it, Yuy," he jested. "You're two inches taller than before, but still not as tall as me." _Before_, what a weird thing to say.

"Hn." His eyelids drooped shut. "I don't want to sleep," he said, but he couldn't open his eyes again. "I've slept too much."

"You need your rest." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Heero's face scrunched up. "You can't do that here. What if someone sees?"

"I don't care. I'm going to kiss you again." The next kiss landed on Heero's lips. Heero was unresponsive but the kiss was sweet and exactly what Duo needed regardless. "It's good to have you back."

"I'm not back," he muttered. His eyebrows pinched together. His eyes were still closed. "Not yet. But I will be."

Duo didn't know what to say other than: "I love you, Heero." He had never told his partner that before, even though it had been the wry truth for the past two years. Duo had always been too afraid of scaring Heero off with his admission, because he knew the Japanese agent wasn't ready yet to say it back and the imbalance would cause a strain on the relationship. He had been waiting for the right moment all that time, but it was apparent now that there was never a right time. All they had was now. Duo was afraid of how this would change Heero and how it would change them.

He himself didn't feel like the same person he was _before_. He used to have confidence in his own control and his abilities. For the first time, he was scared of himself. Scared of his selfishness and how his mistakes never seemed to hurt him, only the people around him; the people he loved.

Heero didn't respond. His face relaxed and his breathing evened out. At least the pills were actually helping.

"I love you so much," he choked and he thought he had stayed in control of his emotions until he saw the tear fall on Heero's cheek and slide down and Duo realized he was crying. "I'm so sorry," he said to the sleeping figure and he made a face at his pathetic apology. He wiped his tear off Heero's cheek. Heero would never forgive him once he knew what Duo had done.

He didn't know if either of them was strong enough to handle this '_after_'.


	7. Chapter 7

**GROUNDED**

**Part VII – Heero's POV**

Voices in his ear. Static. Falling. Pain. Crack! Screams. Clang! Fear. Tears. Heat. More pain. Crack! Clang! Floating. Flying. Duo.

That was all he was left with. No real memories, just feelings and flashes, like from a half-remembered nightmare.

"Good morning," Rhiannon chirped as she walked into his room without knocking.

Heero glared at the nurse in her pink scrubs. Her shoes squeaked on the floor and he couldn't think whenever she was around. Always talking, always squeaking, always prodding at him. She was a petit, African American woman. He estimated her to be in her mid-thirties, at a height of 5'2" and weight of about 105 pounds. The biggest thing about her was her hair – dreadlocks with colorful strands woven into them –with the exception of her personality. He didn't like her, but he liked night nurse Floramaria less.

"Did Duo bring you your breakfast yet?" She inquired as she ripped the curtains open, letting the light pour into the room.

"Yes."

"Did you actually eat it?"

"Yes," he grumbled.

"Hm. I'll check with Duo when he gets back." She flashed him a grin. "Have you peed?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should check that with Duo too," Heero bit in dismay at being treated like a child.

"That's my sunshine-boy," Rhiannon quipped, unfazed by his attitude. "What did you have for breakfast?"

Heero knew Rhiannon was aware of the daily menu. She was testing his memory, like she did every day, with tiresome, stupid questions. "Scrambled eggs."

She nodded. "Do you want some water?"

"I had a glass with-…" He let his sentence trail off as she was already pouring him a cup. She walked it over to him and held it out to him, but Heero didn't reach up to accept it from her. Their stubborn gazes locked and eventually the nurse put the cup on the bedside table.

"You will drink that," she asserted.

"If I'm thirsty," he argued.

She cocked her hip and glanced down at her watch. "Well, you better plan on getting real thirsty between now and twenty minutes, because that's when I'll be back from my rounds." She patted his leg – his lifeless, unfeeling leg – and then she walked out; every footfall accompanied by a shrill squeak. "Hey, Duo!" Heero heard her greet out in the hallway and he pushed himself upright a little more.

"Sleep well?"

"Well enough," Duo said, sounding tired.

"Did he eat?"

"Almost all of it."

"Excellent. I'll be back in a few. Get him to drink."

"Will do."

Heero crossed his arms in front of his chest and fixed his glare on Duo when the man walked into the room.

Duo laughed sheepishly. "She means well. We both do." He planted himself in the chair to the right of the bed Heero was still confined to. He bent one leg to put a foot up on the seat and he slouched to make himself comfortable. The American pointedly eyed the cup of water. "You better drink that or we'll both be in trouble."

"Empty it in the sink for me."

Duo chuckled and shook his head. "No."

"Please?" Heero tried. He had had to use that word way too often the past week and he didn't like it one bit, especially now that it had seemed to have lost its effect.

"No!" Duo laughed again. "And don't even think about pouring it into your urinal again."

Heero pursed his lips. He resented Duo taking sides with the nurses. Heero was an adult, he could decide for himself when his body needed hydration and when it didn't. He shot a disgusted look at the disposable urinal at his bedside, made of pressed cardboard, that he had to relieve himself into and every time he did he had to press the button to call for a nurse so she could dispose of the urinal and provide him with a new one. The process involving the bedpan was even worse. Much worse. Not only was it incredibly painful to have to lift his hips off the mattress so the nurse could slide the bedpan underneath him, it was also immeasurably humiliating when the nurse returned to collect it and she had to empty it and clean it. It was a small victory when he had been strong enough again to at least wipe himself.

"What did WuFei have to say?" Heero inquired. He'd rather think about anything other than the many shameful moments.

"Same old."

Duo had meetings with Major Chang every morning to keep the Major in the loop on Heero's status and in turn to keep Duo informed about the aftermath of the mission – the mission that was still mostly unknown to Heero. The Japanese agent could tell that his co-captain and his Major were conspiring to keep as much information as possible hidden from him and it irked him.

"Please just drink your water," Duo pleaded and he held the cup out to him. "It'll be so much easier if you do what she says."

It would be easier, and Heero was not opposed to "easier", not when everything else was so much more difficult. But at the same time he didn't want to give in, he wanted to rebel against her authority.

"She'll hook you up to an IV again," Duo warned him. "Remember how long it took to find a vein last time?"

Heero's arms had had so many needles stuck into them that finding a suitable vein for an IV had become a challenge and she had been poking him and wiggling the needle around for ten minutes before she got it to work. "Fine." He took the cup and gulped down the water.

"Thank you." Duo covered Heero's hand with his and caressed his thumb along his coarse knuckles.

The bedridden agent pulled his hand away and shot a look at the doorway. "You can't do that here."

Duo nodded and retreated his hands into his own lap.

Heero didn't understand why Duo kept taking such risks, he knew very well that the nurses barged in whenever they pleased and if anyone would witness such an intimate touch, it could get them in real trouble; they'd never be able to go out on missions together again. Heero ignored the tingle in his knuckles and rubbed his hands against the scratchy linen.

"She called again," Duo spoke with a forlorn tone.

Heero didn't need his partner to clarify who he was referring to. She had called nearly every day.

"She wants to see you."

It was the same every time. Heero's answer was the same every time too: "No. She doesn't."

Duo scoffed. Heero hoped he wouldn't, but he went through the same song-and-dance with him again as he said: "It's not as if Relena would think less of you if she saw you like this."

"I don't want her to see me, Duo."

"It would be good for her. It would help her to know how well you are. How _yourself_ you are; still stubborn as Hell," he tried with a grin.

"I'm not myself!" He burst, startling his partner. "I'm not myself, not yet. I don't want to be seen. Not by Relena. Not by Quatre. Not by Cho!"

"Heero-"

"No, Duo!"

Rhiannon's squeaky footsteps announced her presence before she did. "Hey boys," she greeted cheerfully as if she hadn't walked in on anything. "I see you drank your water. Thank you."

"Could you knock?" Heero sneered.

"I could. But I'm not going to."

"I'm sick of this!" He exclaimed and the week worth of pent-up frustration erupted out of him and he scared himself because he was unable to control himself. "I'm sick of everyone getting to decide what's best for me! I want to drink when I want! I want privacy! I want to start physical therapy so I can get out of this goddamn bed!"

"Heero, please calm down," Duo tried. His eyes were large and frightened.

"No!" He grabbed the handle that dangled above him and sat up in bed, disregarding the pain in his hips and his thighs and his _feet_. He tried to move his legs, wanting to swing them over the edge of the bed, but all he could do was hopelessly tug at them, causing himself more pain.

"Heero, stop that, you'll hurt yourself." Duo came closer to him and put his hands on his shoulder, intending to press him back down against the mattress.

"I can handle pain!" He put one hand against Duo's chest and he pushed him away.

Duo stumbled backwards and fell over the chair behind him. He crashed to the floor with a grunt, but he got up even before Rhiannon had crossed the room to help him. He clutched his right wrist with his left hand, indicating that he had hurt himself trying to catch himself in his fall.

Heero's anger instantly deflated. All rage retreated into a hidden place inside of him, so well hidden it was like it had never been there.

"I'm fine," Duo ground out, even though Heero didn't even ask if he was okay. Duo approached the bed again and directed Heero to lie down, easing him back onto the mattress.

Heero flinched and squeezed his eyes shut at the unexpected shots of pain in his pelvis. Without the anger to dull his nerves, the pain was excruciating. "I'm sorry," he said through gritted teeth.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"I shouldn't have gotten angry. I don't know why I did that," Heero tried to communicate his own confusion at his out-of-control emotions.

"It's perfectly understandable," Duo shushed him.

It wasn't. Not to Heero. He didn't understand. He didn't understand himself anymore. His body wasn't cooperating and neither was his mind; first the forgetfulness and now practically throwing a tantrum. How was he supposed to become himself again when he couldn't control himself? Why was nothing easy anymore? He wanted so badly for Duo to touch him and to kiss him; that used to be easy and he needed it, but it wasn't easy anymore, not with a team of doctors and nurses watching him like a hawk, never leaving him alone.

"Heero?" Rhiannon called to get his attention. "Are you in any pain? Do you need me to get Faulkner?"

"No, I'm fine." The pain in pelvis was already subsiding and the bottom of his thighs, where they met the prosthetics, only throbbed. He didn't want her to get Faulkner; the doctor was a little too generous with the pain medication and it made Heero groggy. Heero preferred to deal with the pain over the dizziness and the nausea of those shots he would give him in the upper thigh.

"Okay. You just relax now," she said in a placating tone. "Duo, can we talk for a minute?"

Heero caught her pointedly staring at Duo's right wrist.

Duo nodded. "Sure." Addressing his partner he promised: "I'll be right back."

"I'm fine," Heero muttered and he averted his gaze. He shook away Duo's hand when the man touched his shoulder. He listened as they walked out of the room. Rhiannon's shoes squeaked, Duo's footfalls were inaudible thanks to years of stealth training – he couldn't help himself.

Ten minutes later Duo walked back into the room. Heero only noticed when he heard him sit down in the chair and the legs of the chair scratched along the floor as he scooted closer to the bed. Duo folded his hands together on the edge of the mattress, Heero could see from the corner of his eyes. He noticed the bandage wrapped around Duo's wrist and Heero stiffened. He hadn't meant to hurt Duo. He had gotten used to being weak and powerless, he didn't expect that his shove would cause Duo to fall backwards. Heero's anger had made him stronger, while Duo's insomnia made him weaker and he had easily lost his balance.

"I'm sorry," Heero said again, without facing the other.

"Yeah, it hurts like a bitch, you have no idea," Duo deadpanned.

When Heero snapped his head around to look at him, he saw Duo's silly grin. However, none of this was funny to Heero. Hardly anything ever was. He cast his gaze down at Duo's hand and he meekly touched his fingers to the light pink bandage.

"She said I could choose a color. She had blue, mint green and white too," Duo said. "But I chose pink."

"You hate pink," Heero whispered.

The American smiled.

"You hate everything but black."

"Well, she didn't have black," he simply replied with a shrug. "She did have a black cast, but it's not broken, so that's too bad. Nah, come to think of it, I had a black cast before and it was no fun. People couldn't sign it."

"You're an idiot," Heero chastised lightly. His eyes locked with Duo's and they stared into each other.

"… I want to kiss you so badly," Duo breathed and he started to lean in.

"Don't," the other warned, even though it caused a hurt in his chest that overshadowed any other pain.

Duo sighed and shot a look over his shoulder. Through the window in the door they could look down the hall at the nurses' station, where Rhiannon was talking with a couple of her colleagues, making big gestures with her arms. "You don't have to worry about anybody seeing us. It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters. I'm getting out of this bed and back into the field," Heero contended.

The other captain sighed. "Maybe," he said carefully, looking down at where Heero was absentmindedly picking at the edge of the bandage. "But I'm not going back."

Heero's fingers stilled. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't take The Twelve, so I've been grounded," he reminded him, but that was not the whole story and they both knew it.

"You can reapply for the test at any point."

"I'm not going to. I don't want to."

"Why in the Hell not?" Heero burst. It was uncharacteristic for him to swear, but he had been unfiltered lately, which probably had something to do with being confined to the bed and needing ways other than the physical to vent and express himself. He knew that field work meant as much to Duo as it meant to him. Duo had called it their "atonement" and Heero agreed; it was the one thing they had to offer the world, the one thing that gave value and purpose to their lives. He couldn't fathom why Duo would want to give that up. They may have failed their mission, but he shouldn't let that stop him. When they were younger and caught up in the war, they had failed missions before, but they knew they had go on.

Duo's mouth became a taut line. He sat back and pulled his hands out of Heero's reach. "I don't trust myself anymore."

"I trust you," Heero stated. He didn't even need to think about it, it had been an unwavering truth since they were sixteen years old.

The American shook his head and he told him bitterly: "You shouldn't."

"I get to decide that for myself."

"You can't make that decision when you don't know all the facts."

"Then tell me the facts and let me decide. Let me read your mission report."

"You're not allowed. Because of your condition your status is non-active, which means you aren't allowed access to Preventer records."

"That's a bullshit rule and you know it," Heero bit.

"You will be fully debriefed once a therapist has cleared you."

"I have no interest in talking to a therapist."

"Then you have no business reading official reports."

Heero crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared defiantly at his partner, but unfortunately Duo could be as stubborn as him – even more so – and they were at an impasse. It made Heero all the more determined to get out of that bed and get back to work, he was sick of Duo's secrets and his misguided idea that keeping these secrets were somehow beneficial to Heero.

They both glared at each other, nostrils flared.

"It was my mission," Heero said, not willing to let himself be brushed off again. "I have the right to know what happened. You and Chang better start treating me like an agent again, because that's what I am!"

"You're not!"

"Fine! But I will be! Stop acting like I won't be coming back!"

"You need to stop acting like an agent is all you ever were and all you ever want to be!"

Heero narrowed his eyes at his co-Captain. "But that is who I am."

"You're not… You're not. You're so much more. I need you to believe that, because you can't be a Preventer agent anymore and I don't want that to ruin you."

His heart clenched and he clenched his fists in response. "I am a soldier, Duo. Fighting is all I know. It's all I'm good for."

"So, what? These past years with me haven't meant anything to you?"

Heero didn't understand what Duo meant, so he couldn't answer.

"After all this time, you really still only care about the missions?"

Wouldn't it be selfish otherwise? Wouldn't it be selfish to care about the mundane little things that he had taken away from so many people during the war? He did care about more, but he couldn't say it, because he didn't deserve to. He remained quiet. He wanted to stop their argument. He didn't want to fight with Duo. He wanted to go back to the way things were; so easy and comfortable.

The argument did end, with a pained look in Duo's eyes.

Duo dropped his head, avoiding eye contact as he oftentimes did lately and continued to do so more and more as the days dragged on.

As much as Heero pestered the nurses, Faulkner and Sally – during their video conference calls when she was checking up on him – the staff wouldn't allow him to start physical therapy until the pain had sufficiently subsided. His thighs didn't hurt much anymore, but his hips did. Even at the slightest motion it felt like the Gundanium implants were grinding against his bone, crushing nerve-endings in between. It was decreasing as time went by, but not fast enough.

His big toe on the left foot still hurt most of all. It was a relentless pain, day and night, one that he couldn't escape, like the pain in his pelvis, by lying still. There was nothing that could be done because it was phantom pain; a misfire in the nervous systems because of the traumatic amputation. Heero didn't have a big toe anymore – the prosthetic foot didn't even have individual toes, even though the "skin sleeve" did give that illusion, complete with small, acrylic nails – but that nerve in his body didn't know that yet and it kept sending signals to the brain that there was something wrong with the toe. The incessant pain was exhausting, even though the pills Faulkner kept giving him helped him sleep at night. During the days, he found it difficult to focus on anything but the pain in his toe. Faulkner warned him that it could take up to six months for the phantom pain fade away, but in the worst case scenario the pain would be permanent.

As time went by, Duo wasn't around as often anymore and he didn't sleep in the other bed anymore, and Heero missed him when he wasn't there. Although they never really talked much whenever he visited. All Heero did was ask the same questions over and over and all Duo did was refuse to answer. Duo looked at him less, touched him less and visited him less and Heero didn't understand. But Heero felt lonely when Duo wasn't around – even as he acknowledged he wasn't the most fun company to be around. Rhiannon and the other nurses constantly walked in and out of is room and invaded his personal space, but they didn't chase away the loneliness the way Duo did.

Heero waited, watching the window in the door. It was an hour past noon and Duo usually stopped by for a few hours after lunch.

The door opened, but it wasn't Duo. A cleaning lady walked in with an apologetic smile and she held up her mop in question.

Continuing the mute exchange, Heero only shrugged to give his consent.

She nodded, dunked the mop into the bucket of soapy water and she systematically worked her way through the room, mopping the floor, leaving a wet sheen on the surface that Heero watched dry. She pushed around the chairs and bedside tables to get access to every nook and corner and when she was done with the floor she cleared away the dead flowers that Quatre had sent last week and watered the miniature bonsai tree that Relena had delivered to his hospital room. Heero had no idea why the two of them thoughts that their gifts would be of any help to him.

The cleaning lady raised her hand in a half-hearted goodbye and then rolled her equipment out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Bored, he stared out the window. One team was jogging along the track, while another was struggling to make it through the obstacle course at the back of field. He shot a look down his body. He wished he could wiggle his toe, as if that would help with the pain. The action-receptor in his brain was working and the legs were receiving signals, Sally had said on their last conference call, but the synapse firing of his neurons wasn't yet triggering the correct electrodes to enable movements. The sensors had been precisely planted into the part of his brain responsible for the motor control of the legs, but there was no way to predict how long it would take for the prosthetics to act according to the commands of his brain the way his own legs would have. But it had been three weeks now and his impatience was insufferable. For himself as well as for those around him.

His rehabilitation would start in the pool at the rehab center. Only once his brain had figured out how to generate the automatic motion for walking did the neurons have a base-line to work off of and from that starting point he could train more deliberate movements. The water would support most of his weight. By moving what remained of his thighs, he would have to start walking, maneuvering the cumbersome legs until they would respond to brain signals.

Thinking about the pool alerted him to the fact that he hadn't peed since before breakfast. He looked to the side, at the urinal placed on a lower shelf of his bedside table. The table was not where it should have been. The cleaning lady had moved it to enable her work, but had neglected to put it back. He knew he wouldn't be able to get it from his current position.

It could wait, he decided. Sooner or later a nurse would come in anyway and he could ask them to push the table closer to the bed again.

He focused on the training field again, in time to see a team run standard gun-drills on the lawn; all six of them rolling through the grass in unison and bouncing upright to aim their weapons at the targets ahead of them. They weren't using live rounds. Exercises with live rounds were only conducted indoors. They fired balls of red dye at steel silhouettes of men. The training was flawed because it didn't prepare them for the weight of a real assault rifle, nor it's kickback and Heero had observed the effects of that when they had taken their own team to the shooting range. Agents get too used to the easy-to-handle paint ball guns and during rapid fire with real rifles, the aim got progressively worse with each succession. That was why Team One logged more hours at the indoor shooting range than any other team.

But there was no Team One anymore. The only thing WuFei had been willing to tell him was the team was not working on active cases. They were stuck catching up with administrative backlog. Heero wondered how little there would be left of Team One when he and Duo returned. He refused to believe Duo was serious about not wanting to go back into the field.

It was starting to get late and his co-Captain still hadn't stopped by yet. A medical emergency down the hall kept the staff preoccupied.

Heero didn't want to call for a nurse just to get him the urinal. He gauged the distance between himself and the bedside table again. Maybe if he scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed, his arm would be long enough to reach. He really needed to relieve himself. It was frustrating that such a simple thing was such an ordeal in his state.

With determination he planted his hands onto the mattress on either side of him and lifted his weight off the bed. Unsupported by the mattress, his hips ached, but it wasn't too bad. Inch by inch he seated himself closer to the edge and he rearranged his lifeless legs to avoid the strain. They were stiff and heavy, but he could raise them up easily by twisting his fists into the fabric of his sweats and pulling.

Seated at the very edge, he tried again and he was only a little bit short. He reached down and collapsed the railing, so he could lean over a little more.

"Dammit," he cursed as he still couldn't grasp the edge of the table to pull it closer to him.

He was starting to get angry again and it clouded his judgment. He scooted even further to the left, so he was sitting over the edge of the bed a little bit. He trusted the weight of his lower body would keep him in place as he extended his hand out again. The exertion of repositioning himself a couple of times had caused him to start sweating. The pain in his hips was intensifying as his pelvis got angled to one side.

Suddenly a sharp pain shot through him and his entire body cramped up. The shift of his weight caused the center of his gravity to move over the edge of the bed and his heart skipped a beat as he realized he was falling. Reactively, he reached a hand back and grabbed at whatever he could; his fingers twisted into the sheets but he just pulled them over with him.

His body crashed down. His left hip and shoulder hit the unforgiving floor first. The fall knocked the wind out of him and he rolled himself onto his back while gasping for air. He opened his mouth to let out a scream of agony but he choked on the sound. His face was red and hot. He clenched his jaw shut in pain. His entire body was tensed up, like a current was running through it and for a long time his body refused to breathe. With the first deep breath he finally took, he let out a groan. His second breath he exhaled in a long, pained wail; sounding like a dying animal. His breaths came in stutters. One of his hands hovered over his left hip that had impacted the hardest with the floor, but he was too afraid to touch himself. His thighs ached at where the prosthetics had pulled on the joint.

He felt a warm wetness in his pants and at first he thought he was bleeding, since it felt like the Gundanium bone implant had thrust right through his pelvis and pierced his flesh, but he soon realized it was urine; he had wet himself. His eyes began to sting with tears, more from the embarrassment than the pain. He reached a hand up to the edge of the bed, wanting to pull himself up, but even the slightest shift of his pelvis and legs paralyzed him with pain. He clenched his fists into the sheets that he had pulled down with him and clutched the bundle to his chest. His entire body was trembling. He gritted his teeth while he breathed harshly through his nose.

No one had heard him fall, but a few minutes later a nurse must have walked down the hallway and spotted his empty bed through the window in the door. She came in and sounded alarmed.

"Agent Yuy?" She called. She couldn't see him because he had landed on the floor at the side of the bed away from the door.

He couldn't speak; he was too focused on his breathing. Every intake of air was a conscious effort.

She must have heard him pant and wheeze. She walked around the bed and her features expressed her shock at how she found her patient. She rushed to his side. "Oh my God." She pushed the emergency button on the remote to call for help. "Does it hurt here? Is this where you fell?" She pointed to his hip that he protectively shielded with his hand.

Heero managed to nod.

Rhiannon, a male nurse and Faulkner walked in and the young nurse at Heero's side made room for them.

"What on God's green earth were you trying to do?" Rhiannon berated him, but then she paused to assess the situation while the doctor crouched beside the patient and she put the pieces together. Her tone became soft and pitiful as she concluded: "Oh, Heero, you needed to use the urinal?"

Heero spasmed when Faulkner pressed his knuckles into his hip to check for dislocation.

"It's still in," the doctor said. "Let's get him back into bed and into clean clothes and give him something for the pain."

The male nurse hooked one arm under Heero's armpits and the other under his thighs and he hoisted him up from the floor.

As he was lifted, a vague memory returned to him. He had been carried that way before. He smelled soot and blood and Duo. His legs kept slipping out of his grip.

Heero felt nauseous suddenly and he nearly vomited but he swallowed the bile back down. He had suffered enough humiliation for the day.

Faulkner approached with a syringe and Rhiannon pulled down Heero's pants and cleaned a spot on his outer thigh, close to his buttocks and Faulkner jammed the needle into him. "This will work fast," the doctor promised.

A few seconds later Heero's body relaxed, his heartrate calmed and he felt like he could breathe normally again. Within a minute he was pain free and drowsy and was in no state to be mortified or make objections as Rhiannon and the male nurse undressed him, cleaned him with a warm, wet sponge and then dressed him in a new set of clothes. Heero had never been drunk but he imaged that was what it felt like. His mind was fuzzy and completely disconnected from his body. He halfheartedly flailed his hands, searching for something tangible to grasp onto as his mind started to slip away. He hit the male nurse in his crotch once. Both the man and Rhiannon laughed, so it mustn't have hurt.

His eyes fell shut, but he didn't want to sleep. Duo hadn't come by yet and he didn't want to sleep and miss him. "Nnnn… Duuu…"

"Shhh," Rhiannon shushed him while she tied the drawstring on his clean sweatpants. "It's okay. I'm sure he'll be here later and this medication wears off in an hour or two."

For the next two hours he drifted in and out of consciousness. When his senses started to return again, Rhiannon brought him dinner before signing him over to night nurse Floramaria, who castigated him for his carelessness and locked the railing on either side of the bed in place, so it wouldn't happen again.

Heero waited all evening for Duo to show, but when the door to his room opened again, it was Floramaria, bringing him his sleeping pills.

His chest hurt with a sharp pain and he wondered if he could have broken a rib in the fall.

* * *

**I am approaching 2 million words archived! I'd like to mark the occasion by writing a little sequel to any story of your choice. The story that gets named the most will be the winner. You can pick any of my completed works. I'm curious to see what you guys want! **


	8. Chapter 8

**GROUNDED**

**Part VIII – Duo's POV**

The guilt was unbearable and the only way to escape it was to be away from Heero and to drink. He hadn't been drunk since he was thirteen years old; the last time was on the night G had scouted him.

The man said he had been watching him for months and Duo told the "old perv" to live out his fantasies with the boys down the street who'd do anything for a hot meal. But G had made it clear that he had a purpose for Duo; he offered him a life that meant something. It wouldn't be any easier, or less dangerous, but it wouldn't be useless. "Think about it," G had said and Duo had gone to the alley behind the bar where the owner let him drink straight from a cheap bottle of spirit in exchange for some of his earnings of the day. He had drowned the memories of his life, the only way he knew how to deal with them. The next morning, sober – or close enough, at least – he went to find G where the man said he could and he never drank again. Not because the memories were any less hurtful, but because he had a job to do.

That job was gone now.

Duo was once again in a position where he had no purpose, but what he had no shortage of were memories that he'd rather forget. So he drank. He spent the entire night at a bar. As he stumbled home, the lights on the colony started to come on. He knew he wouldn't make it all the way up all the flights of stairs to the master bedroom on the top floor, so he crashed on the couch, not caring that his skin got clammy as the leather was warmed by his body heat.

He was out cold for hours. He was a lightweight compared to his thirteen year old self.

When he finally woke up he was half hanging off the couch; his arm dangling down and his hand resting on the carpet. His cheek was wet as he had moved his face into a puddle of his own saliva. Trying to move, he felt very old. Every joint ached from sleeping too long in the uncomfortable position.

He hadn't been able to sleep much for the past three months, ever since the mission went awry. He kept waking up from his nightmares – thankfully so – which left him running on fumes. It was the first night he had been able to sleep without being haunted by his memories and Duo was torn between relief and guilt. It felt good to finally get some rest again, but then again, did he deserve to escape the nightmares? Shouldn't suffering the nightmares be the least of his punishment?

With a groan Duo pushed himself upright and he squinted his eyes at the bright light that poured into the living room through the tall windows. Outside the leaves of the trees rustled in the flow of the air-conditioning and the current of the oxygen supply. Once in a while, a car drove down the street.

He searched for his phone, wondering about the time. He patted himself down, but his pockets were empty. His gaze fell on his jacket, strewn on the floor by the front door and he remembered slipping his phone into the inner pocket before leaving the bar in the morning.

He regretted having to get up, but he would have to get up at some point anyway. He reeked of alcohol, sweat and the cigarettes two patrons had been illegally smoking; the bartender allowing it. He dragged his feet across the open space and picked up his jacket. The time startled him. It was seven pm! He had left Heero on his own all day, that hadn't been his intention.

In the freezer he found a frozen meal that wasn't past its expiration date. He popped it in the microwave and waited with a growling stomach. He quickly shoveled the meal into his mouth, burning his tongue on the first few bites and then he went upstairs for a much needed shower that took longer than he had intended. The warm water felt nice and soothing and he remembered sharing the shower stall with his partner on a couple of occasions; standing under the spray together and soaping each other's body.

The memory was tainted with a sour aftertaste. _Taking a shower together? Heero can't even stand right now_. Who knew how long it would take for Heero to be able to share such a simple joy with him? If he would even want to share any moment with Duo once he would inevitably find out why everything had gone so wrong.

With an appropriate level of self-pity and self-loathing, he dried off his body with a towel and blow-dried his long, thick hair, ignoring his reflection in the mirror.

When he finally looked at himself, his reflection was a disappointment. He looked like a total wreck, with dry, chapped lips and dark circles under his eyes. He fussed with his bangs, trying to hide behind them as much as he could. He redid his braid three times, to make it perfect, as if that mattered. It didn't and he knew it didn't; he was stalling.

The thought occurred to him that he shouldn't go see Heero. He argued with himself that his presence in the hospital room did neither any good. Heero was frustrated by the secrecy and whenever Duo wasn't overwhelmed with guilt, he was frustrated himself at Heero's stubbornness to get back into the field – as soon as possible. But it was his responsibility to go and offer his partner his help even when the other kept insisting that he didn't _need_ any help and even when Duo had stopped believing that he was actually helping.

He took the metro to the office building, not trusting himself to drive, considering how much he had to drink during the night.

He would've taken the stairs up to the fourth floor – under normal circumstances it would have been faster – but he felt drained of all energy, even though he had slept better than he had in a while. He also worried that too much activity would end up making him nauseous. He was already regretting his microwave dinner, especially eating it as fast as he had.

The doors opened on the fourth floor by the nurses' stations. Duo knew most of them – not just by name, he actually _knew_ them. Not only had the staff tended to both captains on multiple occasions after risky missions that nearly went wrong, but not quite, he had also been spending a lot of time in the medical wing of the building and although he never felt much like chatting, the nurses rambled on about their daily lives to him or to other nurses and Duo would overhear.

He raised his hand in a polite wave to greet Su, Coën and Floramaria. The latter was a bitch, to be honest, but the friendlier he was to her, the easier she was to handle. He walked past their station, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and headed for the door to Heero's private room, when Flora's scratchy voice stopped him.

"He's asleep."

Duo spun around and quirked an eyebrow at her. He had to wait for her to finish her conversation with male nurse Coën before she continued:

"Faulkner gave him his sleeping pills about an hour ago." She checked something on the whiteboard behind her and specified: "Fifty minutes."

The agent checked his watch. It was only eight thirty. Faulkner normally didn't give Heero his pills until nine pm. "Why? It's still early. I was hoping to see him."

"If you were hoping to see him, you should have come sooner," Flora bit.

Duo blinked at the jab, as if she somehow knew why he had skipped on his afternoon visit. "Why is he already asleep though?" Duo pressed.

"He's had a rough day. He's had an accident."

Duo's heart skipped a beat and he took a step closer. Within a second his fear melted into anger, thanks to how snobby Flora was regarding him, with her hands on her hips. "He had an _accident_? How the fuck is that even possible? He's bedridden!"

The nurse shook her head at him and shared a look with her colleagues. "I'm not going to talk to you if you take such a tone with me."

"Tell me what the fuck happened!" He demanded.

Flora glared at him and wagged her finger at him in warning. "There is no need for you to be volatile."

Duo was about to blow up at her when he felt a hand on his upper arm. He turned and was relieved to see Rhiannon's much kinder face. "I'm so glad you're here."

"I was on my way out," she nodded to the elevator, to which she had been headed. She was still wearing her scrubs, but her dreadlocks hung loose and framed her small face – the hairclips were pinched onto the breast pocket of her shirt – and she had a blue bag slung over her shoulder. "I don't mind filling you in. Come with me." She motioned for him to follow her to Heero's room.

He shot one more look at the authoritarian Floramaria before trailing after Rhannion. He was relieved to lay eyes on Heero's calmly sleeping form. His breathing sounded steady and he looked fine – as well as anyone could look, after what his body had been put through. His skin was paler than normal and his cheeks were starting to hollow because he still refused to eat properly and he couldn't exercise.

"He's fine," Rhiannon started off with and Duo was grateful for her patience with him. "The cleaning lady had pushed the bedside table out of his reach, so he couldn't get his urinal. When he leaned over the edge of the bed to get it, he fell out."

Duo winced and shot a sympathetic look at his partner. He could only imagine how much that would hurt.

"You know how he is. He never calls for help."

Duo nodded.

"Candice found him. We don't know how long he had been on the floor by then."

"Aren't you supposed to check on him every thirty minutes?"

Rhiannon shot him a look. "I'm going to ignore your attitude and remind you that we are understaffed and dealing with more patients than Heero, who, as you very well know, doesn't like it that we come into his room every thirty minutes. We were tending to a code red and the junior nurse was too intimidated to go check on Heero by herself, but she did keep an eye on him and when she saw through the window that his bed was empty, she rushed to his help. It's not Candice's fault that she trusts a difficult patient to at least call when he needs something."

He sighed and knew not to let his anger get the better of him again. He was mostly angry at himself anywhere, for not being there. He walked closer to the bed and tenderly rearranged Heero's bangs out of his face.

"Why weren't you here today?" Rhiannon asked.

"I- I needed some space…"

"You don't have to feel guilty about that," she replied, correctly interpreting his morose tone. "I understand."

"I do have to feel guilty," he bit back. "I shouldn't get 'a day off'. Nobody gets 'a day off' from what happened. I don't deserve it."

"Is your self-loathing helping Heero in any way?"

He heavily slumped down in the chair and muttered into his palms: "Hating myself seems only fair." He scrubbed his face with his hands and looked at the nurse with tired eyes.

"And what about your drinking?" She probed. "How is that going to help?"

Duo snapped his head to look up at her. His instinct was to lie and deny the accusation, but from the stern look in her eyes he could tell she wouldn't buy any of his bullshit.

"I can smell it on your breath."

"A guy can't drink every now and then?" He shot back, still wanting to defend himself, even though he knew his decisions had been poor.

She approached the bed and momentarily focused all of her attention on smoothing the sheets over the bed and Heero's frame and tucking it under the sides, making it seem like she was going to drop the subject, but Duo knew better and he waited for her to finish her task. She routinely checked the monitors and the electrodes pasted onto Heero's chest, slipping her hand under his shirt to find them, something the Japanese pilot would never allow if he was awake. She checked his catheter too, which they had put back in after the accident, apparently. Duo knew Heero was going to hate that.

"He needs you," she eventually said, once she was satisfied everything was in order and her patient was comfortable.

Duo snorted and scrubbed his face with his hands. "Nothing I do will be of help to him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just going to fail him again!" He blurted and then his gaze shifted to Heero's face, to make sure his bellowing hadn't woken him up. But, of course, the pilot was medicated; this wasn't the kind of sleep he would easily wake up from.

Rhiannon looked confused.

"What he needs-" He clenched his jaw shut, but at her expectant expression, he couldn't help but speak his mind: "What he needs is someone who isn't going to fuck this up."

"What are you talking about? You saved his life. You got him out of that satellite alive," she insisted.

"I didn't save him. I saved the shell of him. He is never going to be the same man again and as soon as he realizes that, he is never going to forgive me. And neither will I."

"Duo. You are the only one he wants at his bedside. He kept asking for you today."

"That's only because he doesn't know the whole truth. He doesn't know what I did to him."

She put her hands on her hips and cocked an eyebrow. "I think he knows you amputated his legs to save him, Duo."

"I _hacked_ off his legs!" He shot up from his seat and glared at her. She was just trying to make him feel better, but that was exactly what was pissing him off so much; because he didn't deserve any relief from the unbearable weight on his heart. The fists at his sides were starting to tremble, as was his bottom lip. She used the word 'amputated', but while equally definitive, that term was far too clean and polite and controlled to be an accurate description of what he did. He knew what he did. He did it again and again, every night since the mission, in every nightmare that plagued him. What made him sick to his stomach, was knowing that that wasn't even the worst he had done to him. He had betrayed him. He had betrayed his partner's trust. Heero would never forgive him, as he shouldn't. Duo would never forgive himself either. It would eat at him until there would be nothing left of him.

He reached down and grabbed Heero's hand, giving it a tight squeeze. Then, in a moment of weakness, he brought the hand up to his face and placed a kiss on the knuckles before gently putting the hand down at Heero's side and then he walked away.

"Duo," Rhiannon called after him. "Duo, where are you going?"

He heard the squeak of her sneakers on the linoleum floor as she followed him down the hallway to the elevator. "I can't be here. I'm only going to cause him more pain." He stopped at the stainless steel doors of the elevator and impatiently pressed the down button over and over again, giving the shorter woman ample time to catch up with him.

"You're coming back though, right?"

"I can't help him, Rhiannon."

"Yes, you can."

He shook his head at her naiveté.

Her tone changed as she stated: "You know what? Fine. If you want to leave, you should leave. But don't pretend that you are doing him a favor by not being here. You are running away for yourself."

The doors opened and he stepped into the elevator. He didn't meet her eyes and stared at the control panel instead, with the lit-up bottom for the ground floor. Before the doors could close again, he heard her say:

"You are being a coward."

He couldn't breathe again until the doors were shut and he felt the elevator descend.

She was right, he was being a coward. He shouldn't get to walk away from the pain he had caused, but staying at Heero's bedside as a reminder of everything that had gone wrong, wasn't going to help the Japanese pilot. The blue-eyed man had always been better off without him. Everyone had always been better off without the company of the "God of Death". He was still that kid from the streets of L2, fucking everything up; making all the wrong decisions. He knew that if he would stay, Heero would look to him for guidance, as the man had done many time over the years – being so unsure of many things, when he was out of his element – but Duo couldn't be trusted. He wanted to do everything right and he had convinced himself that he had been doing a decent job at that, but it was time to face the truth: he had done everything wrong.

He should atone, but not at Heero's cost. Watching Heero go through this painful process would hurt him more than anything else, but it would also hurt Heero and the man had been hurt enough.

With his hands tucked into his pockets he walked back to the metro station and took a seat on the bench. Lost in thought, he missed the next three trains. They stopped right in front of him and people stepped off and on; the crowd moving around him with a hum of sounds – half-conversations, music from headphones, the shuffle of feet and the rustle of clothes, all blending together into white noise. He finally woke up from his trance, although barely enough to function, and got up and sat down in the next train that stopped in front of him. He kept his gaze focused on the LED sign over the door, not wanting to miss his stop, but knowing he would if he didn't pay close attention.

It was a short walk from the metro station to his home. But his home hadn't felt like much of a home without Heero. Being inside the house felt like being locked up in Pandora's box; he felt claustrophobic in the confines of the space, while crowded with all the memories that were stored there.

The experience of returning home wasn't about to get any more pleasant when he noticed an expensive rental sedan in the driveway and he knew who he would be dealing with even before he spotted the two figures seated on the steps leading up to the front door.

Trowa and Quatre rose from their seated position as they saw him walk up to the house. Trowa looked characteristically stoic while Quatre was appropriately distraught. Before Duo could do anything to avoid it, he was embraced by the short blonde. The Sandrock pilot wrapped his arms tightly around his friend and pressed his nose into his chest.

"I know you kept telling us not to come," he mumbled against Duo's shirt. "But we couldn't stay away any longer."

Trowa chimed in: "We were at the office, but they wouldn't even let us up to the hospital floor."

Duo sighed and politely disentangled himself from the other pilot. "He doesn't want to see you. He has made that very clear to everyone. I'm sorry."

"How is he?" Quatre asked – his eyes big and red-rimmed.

The American scoffed at the tone of hope in Quatre's voice. "How do you think he's doing?"

"Duo-"

"He fell out of bed today because he had to take a piss," Duo snapped. "He can't even take a goddamn piss." He shook his head and side-stepped the two of them to climb the stairs up to front door.

Of course, they both followed him up and he had no choice but to let them in.

The living room was a mess, as was the rest of the house – the state of the kitchen was the worst of all. Heero had always been the organized one and especially given the circumstances, Duo couldn't be bothered to clean up after himself. The smell of the unwashed dishes in the sink was noticeable, even at the threshold.

Quatre and Trowa made no comment about the mess and quietly followed Duo inside.

"Would you guys like something to drink?" He ripped the refrigerator door open. "I have… Water and beer."

"No, thank you." Quatre's voice was meek.

With a sigh Duo closed the door, resisting the urge to grab a beer for himself, knowing it would spark a confrontational conversation that he wasn't in the mood for. He leaned his body against the fridge, feeling heavy and tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose, still feeling the headache from one of his worst hangovers in years. "You shouldn't have come."

"He can't keep avoiding us," the blonde argued with a stomp of his foot. "It's not right. We're his friends."

"You can't help him anyway…" Duo dragged his feet over to the couch where he dropped down on top of clothes that he had stripped off days earlier and never bothered to put in the laundry.

"We want to show him our support."

"That stuff doesn't mean anything to Heero," he groused.

"You know that's not true," Quatre said and his aquamarine eyes were fiery somehow. "You know that better than anyone."

"Do I?" He remembered all the things that hero had said to them when they had had another one of their arguments. He had never saved Heero. He hadn't saved him from that satellite. He hadn't saved him before – he hadn't saved him from himself. Everything Duo had hoped for for the past few years was an illusion that had shattered into a million pieces and every step he made in an attempt to fix things, only had him stepping into those sharp shards of a broken dream. "He is still the soldier, nothing more. All he is focused on is getting out of that bed and getting ready to go on missions again. It's all he thinks about."

"Is that even possible?" Trowa inquired.

"No. But he refuses to believe that."

"Well, he's… Heero. If anybody can get back to their old self after something like this, it's him," Quatre offered, again with that hopeful tone that was so out of place.

"_Nobody_ can come back from this, Quatre," Duo pressed. "If he could be the kind of soldier that he was, with fucking robot-legs, Dr. J would have sawed off all of his limbs himself when he was a kid."

"Well, with the advances in medicine…"

"Quatre, if this is the kind of 'support' you intend on giving him, it's for the best that they won't let you see him," Duo snapped. "He doesn't need you feeding his delusions that having his legs hacked off is nothing but a temporary set-back."

The two other pilots exchanged a look at Duo's biting remark.

"He needs to accept that he won't be the same again and the sooner he does, the more he is spared from disappointment. And the less likely he is to become self-destructive in his quest to get back on his feet again – shit, excuse the pun." He puffed out his cheeks as he blew out air.

Quatre took a seat on the armrest of the couch, nudging away Duo's feet which had been propped on it. "Are you okay?"

Duo covered his face with his hands. He couldn't look at either of them, nor did he want to be seen, as he admitted in a whisper: "No." He felt a hand on his calf, giving a comforting squeeze. "Everything is ruined, and it's all my fault."

The hand rubbed up and down. "Why do you keep saying that? I don't understand. You can't seriously blame yourself for taking the measures that you did to save Heero's life."

With a grunt he sat upright and he pulled his legs up to his chest, getting them out of his friend's reach. He looked at the two of them with pitiful eyes and told them half of the horrible truth. "He begged me not to."

Blonde eyebrows raised until they were hidden behind his bangs. "What do you mean?"

"I read the report," Trowa interjected. "Heero was unconscious."

"I wrote that report."

"You lied. Why?"

"Because-…" Duo threw his hands up in exasperation. "Because we have to detail everything in those goddamn reports and I couldn't fucking… write down-… I couldn't relive it, to commit it to paper, knowing he would read it eventually. The one thing that gives me some piece of mind is that he doesn't yet remember what happened and hopefully he never will – not fully."

"Maybe knowing the full truth can help him accept his situation. Heero is strong, he can handle it."

"He begged me to let him die there, Quat!" Duo regarded him with furious eyes. Quatre was such a silver-linings-person that he couldn't imagine the dark in people and he idolized Heero to a point where it hampered his usual acute awareness and understanding of people.

Quatre seemed as frustrated with Duo's negativity as Duo was with Quatre's positivity. He rose from the armrest and put his hands on his hips. He was looking at Trowa when he said: "I want to see him."

The American let out a bitter chuckle. "He won't let you. He wouldn't even let Relena see him."

Trowa nodded in understanding. Trowa and Heero were very different from one another in many ways, and yet they always seemed in tune with each other and they understood each other without needing words. "Give him time, Quatre. If he's not ready to face anyone but Duo yet, we have to respect that."

"Even when he's wrong for shutting out his friends?" Quatre challenged, not at all pleased that the two other men in the room were ganging up on him.

"He needs to realize that for himself."

"But I want to help," the blonde stated pathetically.

"I know," Trowa appeased with a nod, "and so does Heero. But helping someone when they aren't ready yet, isn't helping them at all."

Quatre stood in silence, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He pinned Duo down with a cold gaze. "You need to take care of him. And remind him that we are all there for him, whenever he's ready."

"I can't go back there," Duo confessed miserably and he dropped his head down, letting his bangs hide his shameful face. "I'm not helping."

"Duo, you're being ridiculous," the shortest pilot argued. "Of course you've been helping him. You're been helping him for years. Don't give up on him now."

Duo threw a look up at him. "I'm not giving up on him," he hissed. "I would never give up on him."

"Than what-"

"I'm giving up on myself," he clarified.

Quatre's features melted into something sympathetic and pitiful.

"If he wants to be the Perfect Soldier again… well, fuck it, maybe he can or maybe he'll die trying. But I can't be a part of it."

Duo stared at his hands, his gaze followed the lines in his calloused palms. When he curled his fingers, he could still feel the cold steel of the axe's handle. He could still feel the weight of it. His arms had nearly been too weak to even carry the tool over to his fallen partner, much less swing it. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath until a sudden, vivid memory left him alone again and all he saw behind his closed eyelids was blackness. When he opened his eyes again, he could see that he had balled his hands into tight fists; the tendons in his wrist were standing out and his knuckles were turning white. "I broke him."

"He must have been in shock when he asked you to let him die," surprisingly, it was Trowa who was speaking up. "I'm sure that once he is better, he'll be grateful that you saved his life."

"I didn't just break his body, Tro. I broke his trust. His trust is such a special and fragile thing and I wrecked it… Because I'm a fucking idiot," he scolded himself.

"Okay, you are going to tell us right now what happened exactly," Quatre demanded.

Duo shook his head. "I can't. I have to tell WuFei first. As an agent who falsified a mission report, I have to come clean to my division leader first."

"Formalities can wait."

"They can't. If I tell you first, I'm putting you in a situation that I should not put you in."

"Do you think the mission went wrong because of you?" Trowa surmised.

With a sigh Duo got up from the couch and shuffled towards the front door. "I need to sleep. I have a meeting with Major Chang tomorrow." He opened the door and wordlessly requested for them to leave him alone.

Trowa walked by him in silence, with nothing but a thoughtful furrow to his brows. Quatre paused in front of his friend; his aquamarine eyes were a swirl of emotions. "Whatever you did, Duo, I know you did it with the best intentions," he said in a soft tone.

"That's true," Duo agreed, his own voice cracking. "That's exactly why I'm so scared of myself. I don't do things with the intent of hurting anyone. I always try to do the best I can and things still end up going wrong. But instead of it blowing up in my own face, the person I love most got hurt." He added: "… And three people died." He turned his head away when he noticed Quatre was about to lay his hand on his cheek in a comforting gesture. "Go back to L4, Quat."

"We're not going anywhere. If Heero isn't going to let us help him, then we'll help you."

He smiled sadly in return, unsure of how willing his friend would be to lend him support once he knew the truth about the horrible mistake Duo had made. As soon as Quatre had stepped over the threshold, Duo shut the door and leaned back against it. He heard their muffled voices as the two had an indiscriminate exchange of words as they headed down the stairs and to their rental car.

Alone in the house, with no one but ghosts to judge him, he headed for the fridge and retrieved a bottle of beer. Normally, he'd prefer something stronger, but he didn't want to go out to a bar again, having barely made it home last night before getting himself into trouble.

He finished the beer in a few large gulps and then reached for a second and a third bottle, that he brought upstairs with him. He let himself fall onto the bed, his drinks momentarily forgotten. He buried his nose in the pillow Heero used to sleep on, but it didn't smell like the other man any more. Instead, the pillowcase and the sheets smelled of his own sweat, from the many nights since the mission that he had spent tossing and turning in the bed; barely asleep – not deep enough in slumber to rest, but deep enough to be submitted to nightmarish memories that he couldn't escape from. He couldn't count how many times he had shot upright in the middle of the night, with sweat cooling on the bared skin of his torso and his legs all tangled up in the sheets. One night, he had even fallen flat on his face while trying to escape an invisible threat that had chased him from the dream into reality. The nightmare was the reality.

The other two bottles were emptied quickly and he went downstairs to get more and settled on the couch. The idea of the bed was alluring and it kept tempting him up to the top floor of the house for the past few weeks, but there was no comfort on the soft mattress, or wrapped up in the silk sheets. He had a better chance of falling asleep on the trusty couch, where fewer memories lingered.

Heero and him had had sex on the couch many times, but those memories were not the kind that bothered him. In that bed they had slept in each other's arms, shared whispered conversations about the things they didn't want anybody else to know and had kissed through sleepless nights without either having the intention of taking it any further than the intimate merging of their mouths. Sex wasn't special to Duo; he could have sex with anyone – and for a few years, between the wars and joining the Preventers with Heero – he did exactly that: have sex with anyone. But what he had shared with Heero in that bed – their bed – was something he had never had with anyone else, nor did he ever want to have it with anyone else. It was a bond that he had cherished. But now it was broken and the most bittersweet thing of all was that he was left to wonder if he truly lost something, or if he never had anything to begin with. Nothing but misreading all the little things between them.

Eventually, the self-induced drunken stupor guided his mind into unconsciousness and he managed to get a few hours of sleep before the bright lights of the colony mimicking earth's sunset thankfully woke him from more of the same dreams.

He dragged himself upstairs and went through the morning ritual of showering and brushing his teeth as often as he could stand before getting absolutely sick with the taste of spearmint of Heero's toothpaste. Then he got dressed in the only clean clothing he had left; a respectable combination of black slacks and black button-up shirt that he had saved for the occasion. It seemed only appropriate.

The hangover wasn't too bad. He felt alert enough that he was confident he could drive to the Preventer office, rather than take the metro again. In the underground parking garage he was greeted with polite nods from other agents and techs coming in. For them, it was just another day at the office. Joining him in the elevator was agent Cho. She offered him a smile in the reflection in the doors. He didn't smile back; he hadn't been able to smile at any of them, he had a hard enough time looking anyone in the eye.

WuFei came bursting out of his office, with his nose buried in a folder. He nearly ripped the pages as he leafed through the information and the two of them would have crashed into each other if Duo hadn't jumped to the other side of the corridor at the last second. The Chinese agent looked up with an exasperated apology.

"I need to talk to you."

"I'm busy, agent Maxwell."

WuFei was about to walk away but Duo grabbed his wrist and rooted him in his spot. Black eyes met his and the two stared at each other for several heartbeats, without saying anything. WuFei started to nod slowly and he closed the folder as if it had suddenly become unimportant to him. "Okay. Okay, let's talk." He gestured for Duo to step into his office and then followed him inside, closing the door behind him.

Duo waited in the center of the room as WuFei maneuvered around him and his desk to take a seat in his chair. "What's going on? Is Heero alright?" The Major inquired when the silence stretched too long for his liking.

Duo noticed the slip of WuFei calling the agent by his first name. The former Shenlong pilot tried very hard to stay professional, but lately he had been failing. He had a connection with Heero that he would probably rather deny, since he didn't seem to understand it any more than anyone else did; it went beyond mutual respect.

Instead of replying, Duo fished a folded-up rectangular envelope out of the back pocket of his slacks, smoothed out the crease and then solemnly placed it on the desk in front of his superior.

"What's this?" WuFei didn't touch it, or even looked at it for longer than a split second.

"It's my letter of resignation."

The Chinese man scoffed and flicked the envelope away. "I don't accept."

"You will. You will want the satisfaction of firing me, but if you fire me I get benefits that you won't want me to have."

WuFei sighed and sat back in his chair. "You're being very melodramatic, agent Maxwell. I don't know what to do with that. But I do know that I don't want you to quit and I don't want to fire you either. You're the best team Captain of this division."

That was so comically untrue he nearly let out a dark laugh. He kept his face straight and said: "There's no team to captain anyway."

"There will be." His fingers rifled through a stack of files on the corner of his desk and then produced three of them. "I have been working on finding new agents to complete your team. These three will make a good fit, I think. Stieber, a transfer from L3, and a recruit straight out of the Academy – top of his class, I trained him myself."

Duo shook his head. "No. I'm quitting. I can't do this without Heero."

"You're wrong," WuFei asserted. "Heero couldn't do this job without you, not the other way around. I only allowed for you two to captain a team together because I knew we couldn't find another place for Heero in the agency otherwise; he could never be a subordinate, he's too independent to accept anyone telling him how to approach his missions and he would never be able to lead a team by himself either. You're a good Captain, Duo, and these three," he nodded down at the files, "in combination with Cho, Swafford and Rubo, will make a good team."

"I don't deserve your trust. I don't deserve Heero's trust. And I don't deserve the trust of any team member."

"Just spit out what you want to say, Duo."

He wanted to. He was trying to. But saying it out loud was different from the rehearsals he had gone through in his head. Self-preservation made it hard to come clean; it was his survival instinct rearing its ugly, selfish head. But he had done so many wrong things that he knew it was time to do the right thing and telling the truth was always the right thing.

"Maxwell?"

"It's all my fault. They should have never come along on the mission with us."

* * *

**Don't forget to vote for a sequel in your review and/or in the poll on my profile page!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Please keep voting for the sequel you want in your review or in the poll on my profile page!**

**The votes are currently at a four-way tie!**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part IX – Heero's POV**

"I want to go home! I want to go home right now!"

The staff had argued with him, reciting all the reasons why it was a bad idea for him to leave the hospital, but he couldn't stand to stay in that room any longer and he kept screaming at them: "I want to go home!" He had been thrashing in the bed, so angry at everything that his body couldn't contain the energy. He made big, wild gestures with his arms and his attempt to kick the sheets away just resulted in him jostling his useless legs around. The two nurses – Floramaria and a male nurse he didn't know – put their hands on him to restrain him, while doctor Faulkner didn't give up on trying to convince him to stay.

When the male nurse placed his hand against Heero's chest and tried to push him back down against the mountain of pillows that had supported him, Heero snapped. He had twisted his fist into the man's scrubs and yanked his face close to his to scare him with his deadly glare, before throwing him back. Being bedridden for weeks, going into months, had left him weakened, but he still found some strength in his limbs. The nurse hit his head when he fell backwards; the wound bled profusely.

After the incident, his desire to be discharged was met with no resistance. It had been the last straw. He had been categorized as 'difficult' and 'unmanageable' before. Now that he was considered violent, none of the nurses wanted to be responsible for his care. Even Rhiannon had relented with a sigh.

He was brought a wheelchair and clothes. It took him over forty-minutes to get dressed and literally drag himself out of bed and into the seat of the wheelchair. He resented the thing instantly, but it was a means to an end. In spite of his exercises – all day, every day – the legs were still not responding. Sally had flown in twice to check on the implant and the receiver in the legs and found nothing to be wrong with the equipment and all she could prescribe was patience. More patience.

Duo hadn't been to the hospital since before Heero had had his embarrassing tumble out of the bed, after which he had wet himself on the floor like a helpless child. He didn't know why his partner had stopped coming in to see him. He couldn't wait any longer for Duo to show up, he had to go see him. He had to go home.

He didn't realize his mistake until the car service stopped in front of his old apartment building.

As far as the Preventer agency was aware, his "home" was the apartment he had been renting since he first joined the agency. He had kept the lease to keep up pretenses, so no one would suspect his sexual involvement with his co-Captain. Before he could find a way to rephrase what he meant when he had said that he wanted to go "home", the driver had already gotten out of the vehicle and had fetched the wheelchair from the trunk. He opened the car door for Heero and then stepped back, since it had been made clear to him that Heero would accept no one's assistance.

Heero stared at the wheelchair and at the front door of the apartment building. His apartment, unlike the house he had shared with Duo, was quite wheelchair friendly. The elevator could take him up to the modest apartment, where everything – his bedroom and his bathroom – were accessible to him. At the house, he'd be faced with stairs that he couldn't climb. The only way for him to get around the house was to be carried around by his partner, but Heero was not going to submit to such humiliation. He had suffered enough of that.

So, in spite of his need to see Duo's face again, hear his voice again and feel his touch again, Heero unfastened his seatbelt and scooted to the edge of his seat. With one hand he grabbed the frame of the door and with the other he gripped the edge of the roof of the car. Thankfully, his upper body was still strong enough to hoist himself into the awaiting wheelchair, even with the dead weight of his legs. He grabbed the cold ankles and positioned his feet on the footrests.

"You got this?" The driver asked.

Heero didn't answer him – didn't even look at him – as he rolled himself to the front door, which opened automatically.

The keycard to access the elevator and open the door of his apartment were at the house, stuffed away in a drawer. Thankfully, the building manager still recognized him and gave him a copy. The man was too intimidated to ask about why he was back and why he was in a wheelchair.

The apartment was exactly the way he had left it, if a little stuffy. The door had a mechanism on it so it would fall shut on its own and it was a challenge to hold it open while trying to push his wheelchair inside. The chair got stuck between the door and the doorframe several times before he finally managed to throw the door wide open in frustration and quickly roll over the low threshold before the door fell shut behind him He flicked on the kitchen light and then went to the window to open it. Another thing that proved to be a bit of a hassle from his seated position.

After completing the task of getting inside and opening the window, his muscles were already aching. At least his hips and legs didn't hurt anymore.

He stared out the window for a moment. He had gotten used to the view through the windows of his hospital room and it was a relief to finally see something different, even if all he could see from the living room window was the outer wall of the colony, since the apartment building was located at the edge.

The lights on the colony were dimming; orange and pink hues reflected off the metal walls. He missed earth sometimes, everything was more beautiful on earth. The colonies tried too hard to mimic the conditions on the planet when they ought to embrace what they are; practical and predictable. Therein lay their own beauty.

Exhausted after the long day, he gave up on staring out the window and headed for the bedroom. The corridor was narrow and the angle into the bathroom was sharp, but he managed to get inside. He didn't feel up to the task of bathing himself, but he wasn't going to neglect brushing his teeth. He still had a new toothbrush and toothpaste in the box of supplies under the sink. When he had left the apartment, he always thought he would eventually come back, only he never did. Not until then, at least.

The sink was high and he couldn't reach the stream of water from the faucet to rinse his mouth, so with a mouth full of frothy spearmint toothpaste he headed to the kitchen to retrieve a glass, only to realize he couldn't reach the top cabinets where he kept the glasses. He tried pulling himself up by the edge of the counter, but his body wasn't as strong as he needed it to be. He searched the lower cabinets and found a bowl that could suit his needs. He stubbed his toe against the doorframe as he maneuvered the wheelchair back into the bathroom, but it didn't matter. Not because he couldn't feel his feet, but because his big toe always hurt, ever since he woke up in that bed.

He filled the bowl with water and finally rinsed his mouth.

When he reached the bedroom he checked the red LED letters of the alarm and realized that the entire ordeal had taken him half an hour.

Brushing his teeth had taken half an hour.

The irritation that that caused had him gritting his teeth.

Rather than get dressed in nightwear, he just took off his clothes – not as simple as that used to be. He put the brakes on the wheelchair so it wouldn't slip out from under him as it had that afternoon, when he had first tried to climb into the car that had been called for him. He threw his body forward and landed on the mattress and he crawled further onto the bed. Getting under the sheets was another struggle that he wished he could give up on, but he was dressed in only his underwear and it was too cold to sleep on top of the sheets.

Once he was in position, he grabbed the little backpack that hung from the left handle on the back of the wheelchair, which contained the medication he had been sent home with. He was still on an elaborate cocktail of pills to aid his recovery and he had been given a week's worth of sleeping pills; after that, he would have to get by falling asleep naturally.

He didn't bring the bowl of water, so he swallowed his pills dry and then settled down on his back. First, he stared up at the ceiling, then he stared down his body at his two feet pointing up under the sheets. He tried to move them, as he had tried and failed again and again ever since he first woke up. They wouldn't move.

With the help of the pills, he fell asleep swiftly and when he woke up the next morning, the room was bright – too bright - and he could barely open his eyes as the blinding light of the colony reflected off the walls and into his bedroom. One streak of light went directly across the bed and into his face.

Getting out of bed was hard. Relieving himself in the bathroom was hard. Washing his hands was hard. Getting something to eat was hard. Navigating around the furniture was hard. Everything was hard. Everything was out of reach. But he soldiered on like he was supposed to.

One day he mustered up the strength to pull himself up on the counter to retrieve a couple of glasses and dishes from the upper cabinets. In the living room he pushed the furniture out of the way to make a path for the wheelchair between the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom. By the time he went into the bathroom to make it more useable for him, he was already exhausted and he couldn't pull himself up by the sink enough to reach the top shelves where he kept shaving cream and extra bottles of shampoo and shower gel. He used the crutches that had also been given to him, to swipe everything off the top shelves. The products clattered loudly on the tiled floor and one bottle broke open and spilled scented shampoo on the floor. By the time he had finished cleaning up the mess, he was so tired he needed to get himself into bed to rest.

Every day, he considered calling Duo, but he always ended up deciding against it, because Duo hadn't called him either. Surely the former Deathscythe pilot must have been made aware that Heero had left the hospital wing of the Preventer bureau, but the man kept ignoring him. That made Heero confused. He had figured Duo had stopped coming to his hospital room because Heero had made it clear he didn't want anyone finding out that the two of them were more involved than they were allowed to be and they would have to be careful if they ever wanted Heero to return to co-Captain their team. But there were no watchful nurses and Preventer-assigned doctors around anymore, so why wouldn't he stop by now, or call?

The first week went by at an agonizing pace and then the days only started feeling longer when he ran out of his supply of sleeping pills and he could no longer sleep at night. His strength was improving, but there was nothing he could do with it. There was energy bottled up in his body. The pressure needed a release; he needed to run, but he couldn't. He felt like a bottle of soda that had been shaken up and he was bubbling and fizzing and the top was about to blow off.

Lying in bed, restless and wide awake, wasn't comfortable either, since he couldn't move around; he couldn't toss and turn. Whenever he wanted to change his position in bed, he had to sit upright, grab his lower legs and reposition them manually.

On the third night without his sleeping pills, he finally got frustrated enough to drag himself out of bed and go through the effort of getting a drink and a breath of fresh air by the living room window – that he hadn't managed to shut after getting it open the very first day.

Outside, everything was black. The only thing he could see were the red, flashing lights of an access port in the outer wall. The simulated wind was nice, however. According to the weather schedule, it had been dialed up to the maximum for the night, to help cool the inner atmosphere after a few days of planned heat. The wind tousled his hair and pulled at his loose, thin T-shirt, which was the only thing he was wearing; underwear and pants were a hassle to get on with his stiff, immobile legs and he hadn't felt up to the task after he had gone through the trouble of showering that evening. Showering, nowadays, meant rolling his wheelchair into the shower stall and letting it get soaked by the spray of water just as he was. He couldn't reach the shower head, which was propped up high, so it took some scooting back and forth in the small stall to get the spray of the water aimed at every part of his body to rinse off the suds of the soap and shampoo. He had gotten so much shampoo in his eyes that they were red and irritated by the time that he was done.

He smoothed the oversized T-shirt over his thighs, wanting to keep himself covered up, even though no one was around to see him naked and plenty of people had seen him undressed as of late. Being manhandled in the hospital had felt like a violation to him, one that still made his stomach turn. He had no choice but to accept people touching him and it was the fact that it hadn't been his choice – that it had never been a matter of consent – that made his nauseous. He used to be good at following orders and taking his own will, needs and desires out of the equation. That had changed over the past few years; since he had been made team Captain and everyone – including his co-Captain – reinforced his independence. The only time he had ever relinquished control, was when he was in bed with Duo. The man's cool fingers and hot breath on his skin made him come undone. He trusted Duo to know how to make him feel good and he hadn't been disappointed; not even when the man bit him, left bruises and fucked him roughly, almost painfully.

The touch of the male nurses had been different. It still made his skin crawl. They were gentle, but persistent, as they touched him everywhere to examine him, dress his wounds, give him shots, bathed him and applied the catheter that he hated more than anything. He never wanted to be that weak again, he never wanted to be put in a situation where being touched by strangers didn't first need his approval.

He ran his hand down his thigh until he felt the slight lip of where the synthetic skin of his lower legs connected with his thighs, halfway between his knees and his hips. The skin was soft and warm to the touch, but it got cooler as he let his hand trail further down. His ankles and feet just felt cold. The fine hairs tickled him as he let his fingers ghost over the surface. He closed his eyes and imagined Duo touching him, running his hands up his legs and spreading them, peppering kisses on his calves, that he put over his shoulders and having Heero lock his ankles behind his head.

He palmed his crotch through the thin material of the shirt that covered him, but his eyebrows just knitted together in frustration and after a few attempts to get himself hard so he could at least find a release for some of his pent-up energy, he gave up. He hadn't had an erection since before the mission. Sally had assured him that there had been no nerve damage following his brain operation and he trusted her, but the only other alternative meant that his body's unresponsiveness was psychological and that worried him more than anything.

His phone was on the side table next to the couch, directly to his right and he had only looked at it to check the time displayed on the screen, but without conscious thought he had taken it into his hand and had dialed the number he knew by heart. It was the number of his home, after all. His thumb hovered over the green call button.

It was late, so he shouldn't call. He didn't really know what to say, so he shouldn't call. And Duo hadn't called him either, so he shouldn't call.

He pressed the green button anyway and held the phone to his ear.

Every time it rang, he considered hanging up, but he didn't, not even as the phone rang twelve, thirteen, then fourteen times.

"… Heero?"

Duo's voice was hoarse, but it was a pleasure to hear nonetheless. The way it made him feel completely caught him off guard and he replied dumbly: "Hey."

A deep breath in the receiver crackled across the line. "Hey. I heard you went back home."

He didn't, his apartment wasn't his home, but he didn't say that.

"How are you?" Duo asked.

"I can't sleep."

There was a soft laugh. "I figured."

"I'm sorry. It's late, I shouldn't have called. You were probably asleep."

"I was," Duo admitted, "but I'm glad you woke me."

"I ran out of sleeping pills and they won't give me any more. They say I can't rely on them forever; that it's not healthy."

Duo didn't say anything.

"I can't sleep if I'm not tired."

"Do you want me to tell you something boring?"

Heero smiled at the familiar offer. He wasn't sure if Duo's deep voice would be enough to lull him to sleep without going for his nightly run first, but it was worth a try and he didn't want to hang up yet anyway, even though neither of them could say all the things that needed to be said. "Yes. Please," he breathed.

"Okay, hold on a second." There was a rustle on the other side of the line; Duo was moving around. Apparently, he went to grab something to draw inspiration from, his tablet most likely, as he started: "So, there's this actress on L4 that got married last weekend…" Duo told him the meaningless details of the ostentatious ceremony and the movies she had been in, none of which either of them had ever seen.

Heero closed his eyes and listened to the constant rumble of Duo's voice. It wasn't the same as listening to him talk while they were in bed together and he could feel Duo's every breath and the vibration of his voice in his chest, but it still had a calming effect on him.

Duo effortlessly blended one story into the next as he was probably working his way through some gossip blog, knowing that the woes of celebrities didn't intrigue Heero in the least. None of the names were even familiar to him. They were just regular people to him; people Heero didn't care about. He couldn't fathom why the general public cared about who they dated, what they wore, what their fitness routines were like and how they preferred their coffee.

All Heero cared about was Duo's voice; constant and deep. It was an ocean he was sinking into. He didn't even really hear the words anymore, instead the voice faded to an indiscriminate hum.

When he woke up, the wall outside his apartment was glowing pink and orange again. The phone was in his lap and he could faintly hear the beeping of the dial tone. He had only slept for a few hours – less than four – but it was remarkable that he had slept at all. Logically, it was pure exhaustion from not having slept in over 48 hours that finally did the trick, but he couldn't shake the idea that the comforting effects of Duo's voice had something to do with it. He wondered how long the man had kept talking to him until he had realized he had fallen asleep. Heero tried to pinpoint the moment he had sunken into a dreamless state of unconsciousness, but he couldn't remember.

He went through his day as usual; cursing a lot because even the most simple, daily chores were not becoming any less of a hassle from his seated position.

At night, he called Duo again. The phone rang thirty times before Heero recognized that it was going to go unanswered and he hung up. He spent the rest of the night rubbing the big toe on his left foot, as it ached insufferably.

He felt silly for calling Duo, more-so since the call had gone unanswered. He didn't want to need anyone, but he did need Duo. It was embarrassing having to admit that to himself – he would never admit it to anyone else, not even to Duo.

The next night he tried again and once more Duo didn't pick up the phone. In spite of that, he did manage to scrape together a few hours of sleep as he nodded off a couple of times during the night and the following day. Pure exhaustion simply caused him to black out and he didn't wake up feeling anymore rested and that pressure of energy inside him was still building.

His physical therapy wasn't scheduled to start for another week – since he was supposed to still be in the hospital room after all, letting nurses fret over his recovery. Although, he wasn't sure how useful physical therapy was going to be as long as his legs weren't responding to the signals sent by the implant in his brain.

He was bored. He didn't have a television, unlike at the house, and none of his books and other reading material were at the apartment either. His mind was trapped in an uncooperative body, with no outlet available to him.

He started thinking about the mission again. He had gone over every detail countless of times while confined to his bed. Being grounded, he still hadn't been allowed access to the mission report and his memory was still patchy and disjointed. The snippets of memories were impossible to piece together; the edges were too blurry for the puzzle pieces to fit. He wanted Duo to tell him what happened exactly, but Duo refused to explain the sequence of events, thinking he was protecting Heero somehow by keeping him in the dark. The man mistakenly thought that Heero didn't know that he was the one to cut off his legs, but while Heero didn't remember the act, he knew it was the only logical explanation.

The Japanese pilot leaned forward and grabbed the ankle of his left leg, to hoist it up over his right knee, bringing the throbbing toe in his reach. He massaged the stiff, unyielding foot absent-mindedly. While he could feel the pain, he couldn't feel his own touch and somehow that helped subdue the pain; like his brain was forced to accept that the sensations in his lower extremities weren't real by experiencing that his own touch didn't register in the nervous system.

That morning, he watched the lights come on, slowly brightening overhead. He squinted his eyes, which were irritated and watery from lack of rest. He kept pinching his thumb and forefinger around his big toe on his left foot, while the toe on his right foot was starting to hurt more and more. Rather than acknowledge that the pain wasn't real, his brain just displaced it to the other foot.

He started wiggling his toes, to scratch them against the rough plastic of the footrest, then he froze.

Did he really just wiggle his toes, or did he only _think_ he was wiggling his toes, while in fact nothing was happening? He leaned forward, folding himself over his left leg which lay bent in his lap. He glared down at his right foot, which was prettier than it used to be – an odd thing to notice. After a moment of apprehension, he wiggled the toes again.

They moved.

His eyes widened and he kept doing it. He couldn't really 'wiggle' his toes, since there was no toe-separation or articulation in the foot, but the block of five toes moved up and down in accordance with his brain's commands. Overconfident, he tried moving the toes on the left foot, but they wouldn't budge and the disappointment dulled the small victory, but he focused on his right foot instead.

The toe still hurt, but at least it was moving.

* * *

**Next chapter will be the second part of the mission!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Warning: GRAPHIC (you know what's going to happen)**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part X – Duo's POV**

"Hey," Duo called, before Heero and Beck could run off in the opposite direction. His partner stopped and turned to face him with an expression of surprise that only Duo's trained eye was able to recognize. Not caring about what the other three pairs of watchful eyes would think, Duo placed his hand on Heero's shoulder and the Japanese agent looked at it with apparent alarm; still mostly concerned with their keeping their relationship a secret.

Duo didn't let Heero distance himself from him and instead the taller man leaned in closer and said softly, yet urgently: "Be safe. Don't be a hero."

A little frown appeared between Heero's eyebrows. "Too late."

He smiled at him. He wanted to hug him and kiss him, but he didn't, because it was neither the time nor the place, but as soon as he let go of his partner and took a step back, he had a sinking feeling that he would come to regret not letting their lips meet for one more time in that moment.

Since there was no use for regrets or all the other emotions that were troubling him while on an important mission – Heero would be the first to agree – he shook away those thoughts and feelings and proclaimed with a smirk: "Let's gut this bitch."

Heero nodded and gestured for Beck to follow him to the left, as Duo, Grace and Viver headed right.

The American jogged down the corridor, on the trail of his team members, but before they rounded the corner Duo, twisted his neck to look over his shoulder and he caught Heero looking back at him as well. He held his gaze until he disappeared from sight.

An uneasy feeling grew in his belly; a feeling he was too familiar with. He had felt the exact same way on every mission he had ever been on with Heero, since the time they spent hiding out on earth, pretending to be regular high school students. That feeling of knowing that – however skilled they were, however well-prepared they were and however many successes they had had in the past at beating the odds – this could be the one mission where everything could go wrong and that look he had shared with his partner could be their last.

He focused on the task ahead, because he had no other choice.

The three of them went through a door marked MISSILE LAUNCH and ended up in the hollow core of the satellite, where a skeleton of metal walkways and staircases were built around the three towering missiles at the center. They were all the way at the top of a twenty-three floor tall hollow and would have to work their way down, systematically placing the charges.

"You two start up here and place charges A through E. I'll rush down and start midway with F and work my down to the main charge at the ground floor." At that point, he had no choice but to trust them to be able to fulfil their part in the mission.

Viver and Grace both nodded and rushed off to get to work. Duo watched them leave with furrowed brows and prayed that he hadn't made a huge mistake by assigning the inexperienced agents such an important task. He steeled his nerves and started making his way down the flights of stairs. The construction of the walkways was haphazard and inefficient; every few floors he had to run to the far end of the space to reach the next set of stairs going down. He listened in on Heero and Beck breaching the control room and taking over the computer system.

As he studied the beams that connected the metal structure to the walls of the inner core of the satellite, he asked the two for up-to-date blueprints on the construction, worried that some of the beams could be loadbearing, which case their calculations would be off. Fortunately, his self-doubt proved unfounded and he realized his mistake as he got a closer look at the shoddy junctions.

"Duo, won't the explosions trigger the nuclear warheads?" Beck asked over the radio.

Duo ducked down and held still, hiding under a staircase and watching a man with heavy, military boots come down to his level. "Hold that thought," he whispered as softly as he could. "I've got company."

With predatory eyes he watched the man casually walk away from him, letting his hand glide along the metal railing. His gun was in the holster at his hip, with the safety snap unbuckled. He had broad shoulders and thighs like the trunks of trees. In spite of his size, Duo didn't doubt that he could overpower the man, but he had to be quick if he wanted to keep him from firing off a shot that would alert the others.

His footfalls were inaudible as he snuck up behind him. His style wasn't as sophisticated as Heero – the Japanese agent could probably incapacitate a man like that with a single, well-placed blow to the neck – but he'd get the job done. With his right hand he landed a powerful punch into the man's kidney, while he expertly fished the gun out of the holster with his left.

The man let out a mighty groan. While he turned around, he reached for his belt, only to find the holster empty. He snarled when he saw Duo twirling the gun on his finger, mocking him. Duo hit him again, against his midriff, intending to knock the breath out of him, but the man took punches better than anticipated and managed to get in a shot of his own; hitting Duo square in the jaw. Honestly, that just pissed the agent off. He jammed the heel of his hand up against his nose, hearing it crack and feeling the blood spew out into his palm. Disoriented, the man could do nothing but clutch his face and Duo grabbed him by the neck and shoulders and pulled his torso down so he could knee him in the abdomen again and again until the big body went limp and slumped to the floor unconscious.

Duo straightened up and worked on quieting his heavy breathing. "Jesus, that was a big mother fucker." He grabbed said 'big mother fucker' by his ankles and dragged him out of sight. The facility would get blown up long before he would regain consciousness, so Duo wasn't going to put himself through the horror of personally executing him.

He routinely explained to Beck why there was no risk of the charges setting off the nuclear warheads on the three missiles while he raced down the staircases, until Heero scolded the chatter over the com-line and demanded radio silence so he could concentrate. Duo smirked at the tone Heero put up. Heero was much more expressive than the man was aware of.

On the eleventh floor he stopped and used the schematic to find the exact location where the explosive would have the greatest effect according to their calculations. He kneeled down and placed his backpack next to him to retrieve the first charge. As Heero showed off his hacking skills by giving them all a play-by-play of his plan of attack, Duo mock-chastized: "Do you mind? I'm handling explosives here. I'm trying to _focus_." He hoped that would make Heero smile. In all honesty, he could arm Semtex in his sleep; it wasn't exactly a delicate process, not with all the preparations they had taken in advance. It was a simple matter of applying the moldable, plastic explosive to the beam in front of him and inserting the wires of the electronic detonator, that he pressed into the front of the charge.

With the first charge done, he headed further down, to the next location. He had left himself with most of the charges, knowing he would get the job done faster than Grace and Viver. He worked quickly and he felt relaxed; he was in his element and he felt calmed knowing that Heero was in his element too.

"One more to go," he declared as he shouldered the backpack and went down to the ground floor.

Grace replied: "I just finished the third. Two more to go."

Duo chewed on the inside of his cheek. He had hoped they'd be done already and on their way down. "When I'm done down here I'll come back up to help you."

Viver groused: "We got it, Duo."

Her tone irked him. Regardless of what she might think, she was in no position to deny his authority. "I'm coming back up when I'm done," he restated firmly and he was put at ease a little when she didn't continue to argue with him.

Duo was in the process of setting the final charge at the bottom of the chasm, on a large support beam at the edge of the space, when suddenly everything went black and in the darkness his heart skipped a beat. Instinctually, he exclaimed: "What the fuck just happened?" But before he could even finish that sentence, red emergency lights started flashing all over, bathing the area in an ominous glow. His heart was racing and his hands weren't quite as steady as he was used to them being as he put the detonator down before he could apply it to the main charge.

Something had gone very wrong.

He listened to Beck meekly apologizing to his superior and Heero berating him, even though it was clear neither knew exactly what had happened. He could pinpoint an alarming note of panic in Heero's voice as the agent spoke.

"I'm locked out. We might have just lost everything."

Failure was definitely something Heero wasn't used to and Duo could tell he was unraveling and that he would take unacceptable risks to try and fix the mistake that had been made. "Forget about that!" Duo ordered, knowing that as soon as the emergency lights had come on, the crew would be converging on the control room, having been made aware that there was an intruder. "The entire crew has just been alerted someone is meddling with the controls. They're coming right for you as we speak!"

"I need to get back into the system, to see if the link with HQ is still open," Heero argued. "If not, I can download as much data as possible onto my portable."

He straightened up and moved to the center of the open space to look up at the windows of the control room at the very top. His body started to vibrate with a fear he had only felt once before: when he saw Heero standing on the open hatch of his Gundam, holding the self-detonator in his hands. If he couldn't talk any sense into him, he was going to do something stupid again and end up sacrificing himself for the sake of the mission. He could feel it in his bones. Duo knew Heero had little regard for his own life and wellbeing, so instead, he forced him to focus on the fact that this time around, he wouldn't be the only one to face the life-threatening consequences of his determination. He forced him to focus on Beck. "Heero, you and Beck need to get out of there! Now!" He insisted.

He waited for a reply, but it was quiet. He called out desperately: "_Now_, Heero!" He nearly wept with relief when he heard his partner say to Beck: "Let's go."

He stood there at the bottom, staring up, feeling useless. He tried to pinpoint his team and he spotted Grace and Viver coming down the stairs a few floors above him. He heard gunfire over the com and demanded to know what was going on and Heero reassured him that they were fine.

Grace was panting harshly, but managed to speak. "We could still activate the timers and set off the charges as planned."

"There's no point," Duo was quick to squash that brash idea. "They'll find most of the charges long before they go off and even an imbecile can diffuse Semtex."

"What if we set the timers early?" Viver unhelpfully meddled.

Before Grace could get any arrogant ideas, spurred on by the female agent, Duo warned him: "Don't you even dare with my timers, Grace."

Him standing in the open space and shouting into his mic wasn't the best example of his stealthy capabilities and he cursed under his breath when he noticed two men approaching him, right before he was ambushed. One of them wrapped his big arms around Duo's neck, while the other came around and started punching him. They were both armed, but apparently wanted to capture him alive for information.

Duo grabbed onto the forearms of the man behind him and used his frame as support as he kicked his other assailant with both feet, sending him flying backwards. Then he suppressed his natural urge to fight the chokehold the man had on him and he shifted his own hips so he could punch the man in the groin. As expected, that made his hold on him go weak and when Duo threw his head back, the back of his head connected with the man's forehead and weak hands grabbed at Duo's shoulders as the blow caused him to sink to his knees. The other man had scrambled to his feet and was charging towards him, so Duo reactively palmed his handgun and fired twice, watching him fall face-first and lifeless to the floor. When a hand grabbed his ankle, he fired a third bullet at the other man's face and kicked his limp hand away.

He squeezed his eyes shut. It had been a long time since he had been forced to take lethal action.

"Duo, where are you?" Heero asked.

"I'm all the way below." He looked up and saw two figures racing along the top floor, assuming them to be Heero and Beck. He didn't see Grace and Viver anymore, but they should nearly be downstairs.

"You need to head to the dock to clear a path and find us a shuttle," Heero strategized.

"I don't-"

"There's no point in you wasting time waiting for us," Heero interrupted him. "We need to get out as quickly as possible."

"Heero, there is plenty of time, we aren't going to set off the charges."

"It's not about what we set off! Duo, unless the power-down erased the changes I made in the system, the launch hatch isn't going to open. If they decide to fire those missiles, the rocket exhausts are going to burn up this place."

Duo's wide-eyed gaze traveled up the length of the three enormous missiles. "Jesus fuck…"

"It seemed like a good safety precaution at the time..."

"Haywire, Viv, where are you guys?"

"We're also on our way down."

He stared up and spotted them on the fourth floor. "Okay, hurry up. I'm gonna head for the dock and find us a ride out of here."

"Copy that," Heero and Grace replied in unison.

Duo took a deep breath and then willed his feet to move. He sprinted to the far side of the space, to the mouth of a corridor that would lead to the lower dock. With his gun drawn, he rushed down the hallway. The dim, red lighting that flashed on and off made it difficult to discern harmless shadows from unfriendlies and he had to tread with care. Along the way, he emptied the magazine of his gun shooting the control panels of every door he encountered, rendering them disabled, to prevent the crew from catching his teammates by surprise once they would follow the path he had had cleared for them.

He reached the docking bay and aside from two sentries guarding the access – whom he quickly subdued – he found it to be otherwise empty of personnel. He checked the log, looking for the fastest shuttle docked at the spaceport and settled on an old P13, which were always reliably speedy. All the shuttles were connected to the pressurized satellite by way of a trunk. Rather than head for the shuttle of choice directly, he released the airlocks on all the other trunks, making them a time-consuming hassle to board, should anyone get the idea to chase after them. Then he headed into the P13, somewhat disappointed by the state of the ship that the smugglers had left her in, but she would have to make do.

He passed through the small cargo hull and took a seat in the cockpit. His hands worked automatically to enable the start-up procedure, skipping through security checks to make haste. On the screen a warning flashed that the rocket exhausts were not supposed to be fired up while the ship was still attached to the dock, but he ignored the warning and started the engines anyway, making sure that all the break-valves were shut and the reserve flaps were open so the ship would stay in its stationary position. Aside from a small shudder, it didn't move and the airlock wasn't compromised.

The escape seemed to be going smoothly, but Viver was set on making things more dangerous than it already was. "I think we can still pull this off," she announced, overconfident after her and Grace had successfully fended off an attack. He could hear the waver of adrenaline in her voice. "Most of the charges have been set and so far everyone is too busy chasing us to even notice the explosives. We're on the ground floor at the main detonator. Haywire can reprogram the timer and synchronize remotely with the other timers, right?"

After a pause, hinting at hesitation, Grace agreed.

Duo burst: "I told you not to touch my fucking timers, Haywire! You better not! Heero and Beck are still up there!"

"We ll start the count down when they are down here and leave just enough time to get to the hangar. You've got a shuttle ready, right?"

Duo cursed under his breath at Viver's hubris. "I'm firing her up right now. Get-away-car is waiting, just fucking get your asses down here and forget about it. It's _over_. We've _failed_." He knew that would be hard for the team to hear – Heero especially – but he needed to get that through their thick skulls. None of them should be risking their lives for something that wouldn't work anyway.

Viver maintained: "No, we haven't! Beck screwed up, but we can still fix this! Grace?"

His hesitation was gone. Wanting to impress his female teammate, Grace became arrogant himself and overestimated his abilities. "I can do it."

"Don't, it won't even work." Duo calmed his voice and tried to convince them that setting off the charges they had placed wouldn't be sufficient to let the satellite implode in on itself, as planned.

Viver kept arguing with him, not listening to his reason. She just wanted to prove herself and that selfish ambition blinded her and it rubbed off on Grace as well. After some more back and forth, the two decided: "We're doing it."

Duo punched a side-panel in frustration, cutting his hand on a sharp edge. "No! _Grace!_ Fuck!" He exclaimed helplessly. He continued yelling at them, hoping to frighten them into submission. When that obviously wasn't working, he tried to help Grace by walking him through the process of reprogramming the detonator, hoping to prevent him from making a catastrophic mistake. Grace and Viver were skilled agents, but neither had field experience and they misjudged how the stress and adrenaline of being on a mission affected a person's capabilities. Duo knew that, in spite of the extensive training, Grace's hands would be unsteady and his cognitive abilities hampered. Moreover, Duo had programmed the detonators himself and his style deviated from standard Preventer protocol and Grace wouldn't know how to handle the shortcuts and loopholes in Duo's self-learned programming.

It worried him that both Viver and Grace had stopped responding to him. He hadn't heard an explosion, gunfire, or a struggle, so he had to assume that they were either ignoring him or had taken out their earpieces.

"Heero, where are you two?" He asked, giving up on trying to help the other two.

Heero's answer was cut off by a loud, rumbling noise – an explosion. Duo froze in his seat and listened to the two men groan as they seemed to have gotten injured in the blast. He had one hand on the joystick but it was trembling and the palm became sweaty. Heero and Beck didn't say anything, all Duo heard was the sound of metal warping with a sickening screech.

"Status report!" He demanded desperately. Still no answer. He shot up from his seat and climbed out of the cramped cockpit, stating: "I'm coming, Heero! I'm coming for you!" There was no reply. He heard loud pops, which sounded like gunfire and his stomach churned. There was more groaning and screeching of metal buckling under its own weight and then he heard a grunt before everything went quiet.

His heart was racing as he sped down the corridor. He had his gun drawn but he was running too fast to be mindful of his surroundings. It was pure luck that he didn't encounter anyone; the crew on the ship had probably been close to the explosions and they had gotten killed or incapacitated in the blast. As he got closer to the hollow core, he smelled the fire and he ran into a wall of heat. At the end of the hallway, he came to a halt and stared at the massive destruction before him.

The entire skeleton of metal had collapsed in on itself, having peeled itself away from the crumbling and distorted walls. The beams and grates lay in a macabre pile at the bottom of the chasm. The three missiles had fallen to one side and rested against the wall, with their shells badly damaged. They were leaking rocket fuel. Flaming debris falling down from the ceiling landed in the puddles and the fire spread. Smoke was quickly filling up the space. It would only be a matter of time until the fire would reach the fuel tanks of the missiles, sparking more explosions.

"Heero…" He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Heero!" The only thing he heard was his own voice calling back to him.

He walked around the rubble, keeping his head low and bending forward to look between the beams. There was a clear path along the entire right side, where the wall on the ground floor came back a little further than the floors above it and the walkways had come straight down. Duo followed along that edge, hoping Heero had managed to get out of the way of the crumbling structure.

He kept repeating his name, his voice getting hoarse from smoke inhalation. He shone his flashlight along the contorted shapes of metal. He found a man, one of the crew – dead, his shirt on fire. He didn't give up his search even though protocol dictated that given the circumstances he should get himself to safety, seeing as it was highly improbable anyone could have survived the collapse.

"Grace? Viver?" He vainly spoke into the mic of his headset. Rationally, he knew the explosion they had triggered would have instantly wiped them out and he shouldn't even expect for there being bodies left to find, much less to find them alive. Being so close to the blast, they would have been evaporated.

He was nearly at the end of the open space when he spotted another body on the floor; lying face down, with arms outstretched, the lower body covered with debris. With a lump in his throat he aimed the beam of his flashlight and he felt sick as he recognized the messy mop of hair, blackened by soot.

"Heero," he released the name in a breath and rushed up to the unresponsive form. He paused a moment to compose himself before kneeling down next to him and putting two fingers against the side of his neck. "Jesus Christ, oh thank God," he muttered as he detected a faint pulse. He took the small flashlight between his teeth to free up both his hands and grabbed the first of the pieces of metal that covered Heero's lower body. He cleared away two grates and four smaller pieces of I-beams, only to reveal that a long beam had fallen across his lower legs, which were both crushed under the weight of it. He grabbed it and pulled with all his might, but it wouldn't budge. Panic made him jittery.

He started coughing, making him aware of the smoke building up in the air and that time was running out. Using another beam, he tried to create leverage to lift the big piece off his partner's legs, but without success.

"Dammit! Fucking- Fuck!" He knelt by Heero's torso and checked his pulse and breathing again; he was holding on, but barely. "Heero, what do I do? What do I do?" He asked hopelessly. He had gotten too used to relying on Heero when shit hit the fan. He was on his own now.

He paced back and forth and punched the wall so hard that the metal sheet dented and he might have broken a bone or two, but he couldn't feel the pain. With his rage amped up, he tries lifting the debris off his partner again, but not even the Perfect Soldier could have lifted that steel if their roles were reversed.

A groan drew his attention and he knelt down again and leaned over the body that seemed smaller than it ever had. Heero was shorter than him, but, somehow, the young man had never seemed _smaller_ than him. He held himself with a pride and strength that was imposing and filled a room, but he was just a crumpled body lying on the floor now.

"Heero?" He whispered. His heart was racing.

"… Uhnnn…"

He squeaked his name again and dropped his head down on top of Heero's, nuzzling his nose in his hair. He smelled the smoke and fire in the thick tresses.

Heero's moans grew louder as he started to wake up and the pain was registering. His arms moved restlessly and eventually he clawed at the floor as he tried to crawl away but couldn't. He raised his head up from the floor, but didn't look at Duo. His eyes were dark and distant and squinted and they search his surroundings. "Duo?"

"I'm here." He grabbed one of his hands and cradled it in his palms. Finally, Heero focused his gaze on him.

"You have to leave," Heero said. His voice was strained.

"I can't. I don't know how to get you out." His voice cracked and he became aware that he was crying.

"You have to go," Heero ordered and he swats his hands away. "You have to go now!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Yes, you are! Go! Go!" Heero screamed at him at the top of his lungs and pushed Duo away until he was out of reach. "Go!" He sounded raw but determined to get Duo to do his bidding.

Duo scrambled to his feet and ran away, but he had no intention of leaving his partner behind. Rather than following the hallway back to the space dock, he took a door to the left and started an aimless search; not even knowing what he was looking for. He ended up in a corridor connecting several offices to a workspace in the back. He walked down the hallway to the door at the end but found it to be locked. He pressed his face against the window to peer into the space and on the far wall opposite of the door he spotted something that sparked the solution.

A fire axe.

He recoiled as it hit him what he would have to do, but he had no other choice – he was not leaving without Heero. He took a few steps back to give himself a running start to shoulder the door open, but it didn't work. He slammed into the door again and again, but the lock held. In desperation, he punched the window, but it didn't break.

"God – fucking – dammit!" He yelled and kicked the door in spite before stalking into the nearest office to find anything solid enough to held him break the glass. The metal coat-rack would do. He grabbed the long bar with heavy foot on one end and hooks on the other and walked it back to the locked door. He jabbed the foot at the window and it easily shattered the glass. He reached in, cutting himself on the jagged edges and he unlocked the door. The agent headed straight for the axe, punching the protective glass in front of it to get his hands on it. After a brief search he found a rubber hose that he would need as well, to keep Heero from bleeding out. With the hose in one hand and the axe in the other, resting the long handle on his shoulder, he stormed back to the hollow core of the satellite. It was fortunate that there didn't seem to be any other survivors to hamper his progress.

He heard Heero's pained groans even before he rounded the corner and they made his step falter. He would only be hurting him more – even if it was to save his life. He shook his head and steeled his nerves and hurried back over to his friend.

The other agent noticed his return and he cried out: "No! What are you doing here?" Then he must have seen what Duo was holding and his eyes widen with panic. "No. No! Duo! Don't! You have to leave!"

Duo didn't listen to him. He cut the rubber hose in two pieces with the sharp axe and started the task of tying the rubber around each of Heero's thighs, just above the joints of his knees. Heero was weekly slapping at Duo, still begging for him to stop and leave, but Duo ignored him and focused on making sure that the rubber bands were tied tightly enough to cut off circulation to the lower legs. Duo's entire body trembled and he felt sick to his stomach, but he knew it was the only way to get his partner off the satellite before the whole thing would either collapse on them, or depressurize.

He got up on his feet and took hold of the axe, wringing the handle in his hands. He looked down at the pale hand that grabbed his ankle.

"Don't! Please don't!" Heero wailed. "Just leave me here!" He was crying hysterically; he didn't look or sound like himself at all. "Please just let me die here!"

Duo adjusted his grip on the handle and raised the fire-engine red axe over his head. Heero was screaming at him, but he dismissed him. He valued Heero's life more than his partner did himself and any sacrifice would be worth saving him. He gritted his teeth and swung the axe down. As the blade cut into Heero's leg, right below the hollow of his knee and above where the beam was crushing his lower leg, Heero's cry of agony cut through Duo's chest. Duo paused to wipe away his own tears to clear his vision and then swung the axe down again, but there was hesitation in his swing and it took a third attempt to separate the right lower leg from the rest of the body. There was a lot of blood, in spite of the make-shift tourniquet. It dripped off the blade of the axe as he raised it over his head again and he steadied himself to take aim at the left leg.

Heero was shrieking and mindlessly clawing at the ground. Duo had hoped he would pass out from the pain, but he didn't and he became so unnerved by how wrecked the Perfect Soldier had become that he missed on the first swing and the axe bounces off the steel beam with a clang and he felt the vibrations come up the handle and pass through his arms.

He took a deep breath through his nose, but coughed as all he managed to do was inhale more of the smoke that was thickening around them. The heat was rising as the rocket fuel burned and around them the satellite was groaning as the intense heat of the flames was compromising the few support beams that were still upright and keeping the structure for falling in on itself. Panic kicked in and Duo hacked at the second leg in hurry. With each blow he felt his strength and resolve weaken and he didn't raise the axe as high as he should have; it was becoming too heavy for him. It took four strikes to cut through the leg, down to the floor, where the axe got jammed into the metal sheeting. Duo let go of the handle and staggered backwards, horrified at what he had done.

Realizing it had been done, Heero finally went quiet. Red eyes stared up ahead. His fingers and his bottom lip were trembling. Tears were streaming down his face, cleaning away the soot on his cheeks, leaving two streaks of paper-white skin on an ashy-gray complexion. His entire body went stiff as he slipped into shock.

Duo forced himself to snap out of his daze. They had come this far, they had to hurry if they wanted to make it. The thick smoke was becoming suffocating. He turned Heero over and bundled him up in his arms and lifted him up from the floor. He walked away and never looked back at the red stumps that were sticking out from under the fallen support beam.

Along the way back to the space shuttle, he had to adjust his grip on his partner several times, to prevent him from falling. The blood made his legs slick and they nearly slipped off Duo's arm a few times without the weight of the lower legs keeping his knees hooked over his forearm. Heero was awake, but completely absent. His eyes were dead. His breaths were quick and shallow. His hands were stiff claws held awkwardly in front of his chest.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay," Duo kept telling him, feeling like more and more of a liar every time. Did he really save him, or did he just let the man he loved die in a different way?

Finally, he reached the shuttle and climbed on board. He buckled Heero into the co-pilot seat and covered him with a canvas tarp that he had found in the back, knowing he had to try to keep his body temperature from dropping lower. He checked the tourniquets on the leg to confirm they were still wound tightly around the legs, but he was losing blood and Duo had no idea how long he had left to get Heero to a medical facility.

He strapped himself in and hurried through the undocking procedure. He was gripping the controls too tightly and it wasn't his best performance as a pilot, but he was doing the best he could in the distraught state he was in.

The mouth of the space dock was deformed as the hangar was starting to cave in since the entire satellite was losing its structural integrity. The side of the shuttle scraped by the left wall as he steered them out into outer space with jittering hands.

When he looked at Heero again, he was relieved to see he was out cold. He sobbed helplessly as he flew them to the nearest colony, as fast as the shuttle was capable of. He couldn't shake the feeling that the part of Heero that they had left behind was something more important than just his legs.


	11. Chapter 11

**Only a couple chapters left to vote guys! Make momma proud and I might have the balls to give you the chance to chose another sequel.**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part XI – Heero's POV**

He rolled down the corridor. The wheels of his wheelchair were soundless on the linoleum floor. A nurse coming his way stepped aside to make room for him, offering him a smile that registered as pitiful. He was no expert in deciphering expressions, but he had seen that brand of smile often enough now to be able to deduce what it meant.

He didn't even acknowledge her as he continued on his way, knowing exactly where he needed to be: the fifth blue door on the left. It was a tight corner, but he easily maneuvered his wheelchair through the open door and into the wide open space of the practice room.

The floor was the same faded red, marbled linoleum as what lined the hallway. The walls were painted a subdued yellow. Equipment lined the perimeter of the space. Balls and other attributes were gathered in one corner. One wall was entirely mirrored. A single, square window overlooked the training field outside. It was raining, per the weather scheduling. A team jogged in formation, their black clothes soaked through by the rain.

Heero focused his attention on the only thing in the room that wasn't familiar to him: a short, young woman with curly, blonde hair pinned away from her round face. He resisted describing her as a "girl" only because she was wearing a white lab-coat over her navy blue trainers and matching shirt. A nervous blush appeared on her cheeks that drew attention to her freckles. After a moment's hesitation, she stepped forward, with her hand outstretched.

"Hi! You must be Heero."

He already decided she was entirely too chipper for his liking. Why was she acting so happy? Couldn't she see the kind of state he was in? He stared at the hand that was offered to him and didn't shake it and kept his hands on the rim of the wheels of his chair instead.

She got the hint and tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat, but her demeanor remained unaffected. "My name is Doctor Pernille Verreaux, but you can call me Perry or Nilly. That's what my friends call me."

"Can I call you Doctor Verreaux?"

She blinked. "Uh… Sure. You can call me whatever you like, but there is really no need for formalities, Heero."

"I'll call you Doctor Verreaux," he decided.

"… okay." Her smile faltered. "Is it alright if I call you Heero, or do you prefer Mister Yuy?"

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. It's not really my name anyway."

"Right." She chewed on the inside of his cheek, as unimpressed with him as he was with her. "So, I'm all caught-up on your medical dossier, but I'd like you to talk me through how you are doing right now." She walked over to a chair by a massage table and she sat down. She motioned for him to get closer.

He rolled closer to her, but kept more distance than she probably wanted. "I'm fine."

"No more pain?"

"My toe hurts," he blurted, aware of how dumb that sounded. He looked away.

"Phantom pain is totally normal. You shouldn't worry too much about it. It usually goes away within three to six months. If it's not gone by then, we can try some techniques for you to help diminish it."

"It's already been three months," he pointed out, as if she wouldn't know.

"I know, but like I said: it normally takes three _to six_ months."

"But I'm not normal."

She pursed her lips and pointedly looked down into the file in her lap and muttered to herself: "No, you are not." She cleared her throat and looked back up at him with renewed resolve. "But you have no longer been experiencing pain in your stumps?"

He clenched his jaw at the word "stumps", rejecting the term. He didn't think of his legs like that. As far as he was concerned, he didn't have stumps, he had legs just like everyone else, from his hips down to the tips of his toes. And he was determined to be able to do anything that anyone else can do with their legs – and be even better, like he always was. What else was the point of his life otherwise, if he couldn't do was he made to do? "No. No pain."

"That's great. The sensitivity of the stump varies between people; sometimes it can take a long time for the soreness to go away. Of course, once you start putting your weight on it, you will probably still experience some discomfort, because the skin on the stumps still needs to thicken."

"Hn." He really wished she would stop talking about "stumps". It was making him angry, like she was trying to impose a disability on him that he didn't identify with. Every time she used the word, he tensed up. It was all he could do to keep himself from flinching in response.

"Can you hop up onto the table for me?" She patted the blue massage table next to her. "I'd like to do a quick examination, just to make sure that the stumps are-"

"Would you _stop_ saying that?" He snapped and he fixed a glare on her.

She swallowed and reeled back in her seat, but after a moment she composed herself and decided that she wasn't going to let him intimidate her into submission. She rose up from the seat and patted the table again. "Up here. Please." Her voice was strained and she had trouble meeting his gaze.

With a grumble he rolled closer to the padded massage table and put the brakes on his wheelchair. He grabbed one leg at the time, hooking his hand under the knee and directing the foot off the footrest. When both feet were planted on the floor, he reached for the massage table for support and scooted his body to the edge of his seat. He put all of his weight on his arms to raise himself out of his chair. He knee-joints were still stiff and remained bent as he tried to get upright. Once he felt secure that he was steady and could hold himself with one hand planted on the table, he reached down with the other hand and adjusted the position of knees, forcing them to straighten out. It took a lot of effort, but he got them locked into position and it was easier to balance that way. He did feel some pain in his thighs as standing put a pressure on them that he hadn't gotten used to yet. He twisted his hips so the edge of the table was against the back of his thighs and he grabbed hold of his sweatpants and lifted the first leg onto the table. He paused to give himself a little rest. Getting up from a chair and climbing up on a table should cost him no effort, but it was an exhausting chore. He scooted further onto the table until he could also lift his right, outstretched leg onto it. Finally, he was seated and he looked at Doctor Verreaux who had been patiently observing.

She smiled at him. "Very good."

He had never felt worse.

"Now can you please take off your pants for me?" She asked with innocent tone.

He glared at her. He was already sweating from getting up on the table and now he had to go through the ordeal of undressing as well? With his eyebrows pinched together in frustration he laid back down and started the process of inching the waistband of his sweatpants down his hips, shifting from left to right to take the weight off so he could pull them down one side at a time. Once they were over his buttocks, he sat up again so he could push the fabric further down his legs. He let them sit around his ankles, trusting that was good enough.

"Thank you. You're doing really great."

"Don't do that, Doctor Verreaux," he ordered.

"I'm sorry?"

"The compliments. They aren't helping."

"Right, yeah, your last therapist made a note about that; that you didn't like it."

"If you knew that, why are you doing it?"

"Because I'm not Doctor Price. I have my own way of interacting with patients."

"I'm not a patient," he argued.

She quirked an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything. She didn't need to. She untied his shoelaces and took off his shoes and then removed his pants as well, setting everything aside neatly, all the while ignoring his dangerous stare. Then she peeled away the skin-colored elastic bandages that covered the seam between the skin on his thighs and the synthetic skin on his lower legs. She prodded him a couple of times, testing the sensitivity. Heero didn't react at all. It didn't hurt, but being touched did make him uncomfortable.

"I'm going to take a better look at the stumps now," she announced.

"I told you to stop that."

"And I told you that I have my own way of dealing with patients. Especially difficult ones." She held his stare and even Heero could tell that she wasn't nearly as confident as she portrayed herself to be and that made him less inclined to give her a hard time.

"Fine, whatever."

She smiled again and reached around to the back of his right leg. She was searching for something and Heero didn't know what until she found a button under the skin and pressed it. It took quite a bit of force to press the button down, but when she succeeded, something clicked and before Heero could object to what was happening, she pulled his lower leg away, lifted it up and set it down on the floor, propped against the chair she had been seated in earlier.

He was frozen and speechless and couldn't stop her as she repeated the procedure for the other leg.

Doctor Verreaux didn't say anything and gave him a moment to process what he was seeing.

Heero stared at the expanse of empty table in front of him where his legs had been. It took him a minute to shake the idea that his legs had become invisible, as opposed to them actually being gone. He directed his gaze to there his thighs abruptly terminated.

There they were. His stumps.

He swallowed. He became ill all of sudden; nauseous and light-headed. His heart was racing.

All in all, it was a disturbing sight.

"This is the first time you have seen yourself like this, isn't it, Heero?"

Doctor Verreaux's voice is distant and barely cut through the disorienting white noise that filled his head. "Yeah." During his previous examinations, they had always put him under. The other four physical therapists he had had all believed that it was better for him to learn to cope with his new legs if he saw them as a true extension of himself, not as prosthetics and it was what Heero had preferred as well.

He flinched when Verreaux touched a gentle hand to his shoulder and he pulled away from her.

"I'm sorry. I know this is difficult." She leaned forward to examine the skin. It was a little red and irritated, but she concluded that it looked perfectly fine. Then she walked across the room to retrieve something from a cupboard and she returned with a handheld mirror that she placed on the empty spot on the table where his legs should have been and angled it straight back at Heero so he could see the underside of the stumps.

The bottom of his thighs were red, clearly irritated from the constant contact with the prosthetic. There were horizontal lines on his skin, from where the edge of the synthetic skin pressed onto his real skin. The Gundanium femur implants protruded out an inch. His skin around the shiny alloy was stitched up horribly and the edge where his skin met the alloy was covered with a rubbery seal. Since he basically had 'bone' sticking out of him, the wound would always be open and, therefore, needed to be sealed. The protrusion was necessary to be able to attach the replaceable limbs.

She tilted her head at him sympathetically. "How are you feeling?"

"I-…" He paused to try to make sense of his thoughts and emotions. "I-…" There was only one clear realization amidst the chaos in his head. "My toe doesn't hurt anymore."

She didn't bat an eye, although Heero was sure he was sounding crazy. "Well, that's a positive take-away. Very good."

He rolled his eyes at her continuing to give him such belittling compliments. He watched her reattach his legs and she ran him through a few simple exercises as he was slowly starting to gain control over the limbs. He could wiggle the toes on both feet and rotate the ankles. The knees he couldn't only get to twitch lightly. She had him lie on his back and held his foot as she pushed back to bend the leg at the knee before straightening it back out again and repeating that over and over. He had to try to apply pressure and imagine it was him moving the leg and not her. It felt silly and awkward and he couldn't imagine how it was supposed to help, but he played along and focused on his task.

After they had done the same with the other leg, she gave him his pants and his shoes to put back on.

Five minutes later he was dressed again and he looked at her expectantly. "What's next?"

"You've been here two hours, Heero. That's enough for today."

He scowled at her. "No! You're not sending me home, we're not done."

Doctor Verreaux put her hands on her hips. "And we won't be 'done' for many more weeks – months, more likely. I'm not keeping you here until then. You're not exactly good company."

He was not in the mood for her joking. "We're never going to be done if you don't push me!"

"Heero, I need you to trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?" He countered. "Are you even qualified to be my therapists? My recovery is very important to the agency. They need me. Isn't there someone more experienced than you?"

"You know what, Heero?" She sighed, exasperated. "I'm probably not the best for the job. I'm only two years out of med-school and this is my first case flying solo, but you chased everyone else away. The Preventer Agency employs four top-notch physical therapists and you have driven them all to the point where they refuse to work with you, so now you're stuck with me. And I don't give a shit how important your recovery is to the agency, I only care about how important it is for _you_. You should too," she insisted, pointing at him with an angry finger.

"But you aren't helping me; you're not pushing me!" He argued, slamming his balled fist down on his thigh in rage. "At this rate I'm never going to get any better."

"You will get better," she promised him and following a deep breath her voice was calmer. "You have to adjust your expectations; your expectations of the process and your expectations of the results."

He pursed his lips and shook his head. He was sick of people telling him that he would never be good enough again to be an agent for the Preventers. That was his life. If he was never going to be any good to anyone again, why bother with any of this? "I'm going back in the field," he asserted.

"I don't think you'll ever be able to pass The Twelve again," she retorted, her tone firm although her eyes were apologetic.

"I can!"

"Fine, than prove me wrong."

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I will."

"Good." She nodded. "But prove me wrong tomorrow. We're done for today." She smirked at him and motioned for him to get back into his wheelchair.

"Fine," he bristled.

It cost some time and effort, but eventually he was seated in his wheelchair again and he rolled out of the room, ignoring her goodbyes.

Even by the time he arrived back at his apartment he was still all riled up and he ended up punching a hole into the wooden door of one of his kitchen cupboards and he swiped a stack of plates off the counter, letting them shatter on the tiled floor. Then he spent the next hour struggling to clean up the mess he had made of his kitchen.

It had been three months since his last surgeries and according to tests the implants in his brain and the receivers of the prosthetics were functional, but his progress was still negligible and his impatience was crippling him more than anything. The physical therapists hadn't been of much help. They just kept telling him that he needed more time, but he didn't want more time. Time was wearing him out. He was going crazy being confined to his wheelchair and locked in his apartment all day – being locked in his body. His sleeping wasn't getting any better either. He'd either get only a few hours each night or nothing at all, making the days last even longer and he couldn't stand it anymore.

It embarrassed him, but he still called Duo every single night, even though the man had stopped answering long ago. Heero let the phone ring endlessly until the call was automatically aborted.

On two occasions he had the driver that had come to pick him up from physical therapy bring him to the house that he had shared with Duo. Duo's car had been in the driveway both times and Heero had waited outside for nearly an hour, calling Duo's name and making his chauffeur climb the steps up to the front door to ring the bell. Duo never showed his face.

Heero wasn't sure what to make of Duo avoiding him like that, but more and more he started to suspect that – just like Heero had become a burden to the agency – he had become a burden to Duo; the man didn't want to see him anymore because he was of no use to him in his ruined body. Heero didn't need much from him, he just wanted to hear his voice and have him lull him to sleep and maybe tell him what he is doing now and what has happened to the team. He tried talking to WuFei about it – and Quatre and Trowa whenever they visited – but no one would tell him anything. They were shutting him out. If Duo and the team were being deployed on missions again, that was need-to-know and Heero was just a civilian now that he had been grounded. He still wasn't allowed to read Duo's mission report either, to help him fill in the gaps in his memory.

He took a shower because the small efforts of the day had made him sweaty and he could smell it on himself. Before going to bed he ate half of a microwaved meal. It cost a lot of willpower to force himself to eat; he couldn't stomach much but he knew he had to fuel his body to regain his strength. Still, he could tell he was losing weight, he could see it in his face and the way his hipbones protruded when he was lying on his back. With that in mind, he forced two more bites into his mouth, but after two full minutes of chewing it until it has a disgusting consistency, he knew he couldn't shallow it so he spit it back into the plastic container that he threw away.

It was only ten o'clock by the time he lay prone in bed. He had switched off the light on the bedside table, but it wasn't dark in the bedroom. Streetlight poured in through the window – he kept forgetting to close the curtains and it was too much effort to get out of bed to close them.

He thought of Duo, as he thought of him often, but seemingly more and more every day. He missed the sound of his voice and the touch of his fingers, tracing scars that marred his skin. He missed his lips capturing his in a kiss. When he was with Duo, Heero could forget himself – forget about the wrongs he had done, forget about his shortcomings and forget about old aches and pains in his body and just enjoy his body instead. He wanted Duo to make him feel that way again, to help him enjoy this body. He needed it more than he ever had, because he had come to resent his body with passion. He hated how helpless and weak it was. He hated that he had no control over it, even though he never used to hate it when Duo would make him lose control. He loved it.

He loved how Duo would take over and take all responsibility and burden away from him. If he couldn't keep himself from crying out, that was okay, because Duo made him do it. If he couldn't stand up on his shaky legs, that was okay, because Duo made him do it. If he couldn't hold off his orgasm any longer, that was okay, because Duo made him do it.

He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He felt his penis beginning to swell in his loose boxers. The fabric tickled his sensitive skin. He rubbed his fingers left to right across his abdomen, skimming the waistband of his boxers. He thought about Duo's hand and how to mimic it. Duo's touch would be stronger, he realized and more decisive and deliberate. Duo always knew exactly what to do, there was never any hesitation - very unlike Heero's own touch. Wanting to imitate having Duo's hands on him, he delved his right hand into his underwear and wrapped it around his erection, while with his left he pinched a nipple. He bit his lip to stifle a moan, but he wouldn't be quiet with Duo, he wouldn't be able to, although he did try. Next time the pleasure arced through him, he released the moan, but it didn't sound right and he furrowed his brows at himself.

He pumped his fist up and down his length and abandoned his nipples to tease the slit at the tip of his cock while he worked himself over. His face was screwed into an expression of concentration. It couldn't have come at a worse time, but his toe was hurting again. It was throbbing and the more he made his heart race as he jerked himself off, the more it hurt. Duo would be able to distract him, but Heero wasn't so skilled and before long, his toe was all he could think about. He tightened his fist around himself, desperate to wring an orgasm out of himself. Masturbation had been a pain ever since waking up from his coma. He used to be adequate at helping himself to a swift release, before Duo came along, but all he could think now was how his own touch wasn't good enough and how pathetic it was that he had no other choice, because Duo no longer had any interest in touching him. The few times he had managed to make himself come the past few months, it had never actually felt good, the way a climax used to be – and the way he needed it to be. At most it was just a relief that it was over and that his body hadn't failed him in yet another way.

Heero gritted his teeth and kept stroking himself, but his body betrayed him in an intimate way when his cock went soft in his hand. He let go of himself and pulled his hands out of his underwear. He released the breath he didn't even know he was holding. His face was burning. His chest heaved with short, stuttering breaths. When he swallowed it hurt, because his throat was parch dry. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could cry if he would let himself, but he never let himself.

It was a night like any other. He ended up at the window in the living room with his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, listening to the repetitive tone. After a couple of minutes, the call was aborted and the dial tone sounded. He went back and checked the alarm clock. It was four AM. The next time he looked, it was seven thirty and he was grateful that he must have gotten some sleep in the meantime.

On schedule he arrived back at the Preventer building at noon and he navigated his way through the corridors. Two agents bowed their heads as he passed them by. He knew them, they were from Team Four and they had always been afraid of him. It seemed they were still afraid.

He rolled into the practice room to find it empty, but he spotted a note on the massage table that he had occupied the day before and went over to check if it was a message for him.

_Meet me downstairs_, the note read, followed by three wavy lines, directly below each other, which he assumed to mean Doctor Verreaux was waiting for him to join him at the indoor pool on the ground floor. He sighed irritably – couldn't she have given him a head's up sooner? – and he headed back to the elevator that he took down to the ground floor and he followed the smell of chlorine and the sound of splashing to the double doors at the end of the hallway. It wasn't the first time he had been there since starting his rehabilitation, but if Verreaux had told him sooner that she was planning aqua-therapy for him, he could have told her that one of the previous therapists already tried that with him and it didn't work.

The space sounded hollow; every sound bounced off the tiled walls and floor. There was one large pool for regular training, where three agents were racing each other in a butterfly stroke, and two smaller basins for rehabilitation.

Doctor Verreaux was wearing a modest, navy blue bathing suit with the Preventer logo on her chest. Most of her hair was under a white cap, but a few curls peeked out and framed her face. Without her hair around providing balance, her features seemed too big for her small face: her round, green eyes, her button nose and her full lips, which formed an even bigger smile when she noticed his arrival.

"Heero, there you are." She waved him over.

He rolled closer to her with a sour look on his face. "I've already tried this with Doctor Hannigan." He needn't add that the attempt had failed miserably, that fact was readily apparent considering he was still wheelchair-bound.

"How often?" She had a smirk on her face.

"You said you read my dossier. Shouldn't there be a note of it?"

"There was. It said you tried it twice and then threw a fit."

"Well…" He objected to the phrase "throwing a fit", but he didn't bother arguing semantics. "It didn't work."

She shook her head, making those few wayward curls dance. "For all your stubbornness, you do give up on things easily."

"I'm not a quitter," he snapped, insulted by the implication. "I'm efficient. When something doesn't work, there no point to continuing."

"Heero, anything we are going to try is going to take more than two sessions. I know you are impatient – most of all with yourself, because you hold yourself to such a high standard – but you need to try to be patient with yourself and celebrate every small victory along the way."

He pursed his lips. He didn't like having to give in, but he didn't know what else to do either. "You didn't give me any notice, so I don't have a bathing suit with me."

She cocked her head and simply smiled at his petty tone. She took two steps to a duffel bag on a shelf and produced a plastic package that she threw into his law. She then pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "Dressing rooms are back there."

He glanced down to confirm she had gotten him a pair of Preventer-issue swim trunks, the same kind Doctor Hannigan wore during their two sessions in the pool; navy blue, loose-fitting, with a white drawstring around the waist and the logo on the right trunk.

"Go on," she urged.

Grumbling under his breath he steered the wheelchair into the men's dressing room. It took him over ten minutes to strip out of his clothes and put the bathing suit on, but he wasn't about to feel guilty about keeping her waiting. It was her own damn fault for springing this on him. He rolled back out with a scowl on his face and followed her directions to one of the small basins.

The basin was a small rectangular, about four feet wide and nine feet long. It had adjustable bars on either side for support and the bottom was a treadmill.

He maneuvered the wheelchair next to the basin and put on the brakes, but he had no idea how to get in. Hannigan had to pick him up and put him down on the edge so he could slide in and it had been a horribly embarrassing experience.

Before he could utter a protest, Doctor Verreaux hooked her arms under his armpits and lifted him out of his chair and onto the cold floor. When he looked at her to glare at her, he noticed her face was red from the exertion, she was only a small woman after all. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the three agents were just getting out of the pool and had been looking their way. Their faces were unreadable, but Heero was humiliated that they had seen him so helpless. He made a hurry of scooting to the edge of the basin, but he had to wait for Verreaux to get in first so she could help him.

She elegantly lowered herself down onto the floor next to him and slid into the lukewarm water where she got into position, her arms outstretched so she could steady him.

The three agents were still lingering by the pool and stealing glances their way. With clenched jaw Heero pushed his hips forward and let himself sink into the water, the heavy legs pulled him in. The feet landed on the bottom and he grabbed the submerged bar to keep himself from toppling forward with the momentum. The water came up to his midriff and supported most of it weight, leaving him without any discomfort in his thighs. Verreaux hands were hovering close to him but no intervention was necessary; he had managed to stand upright without her assistance.

"That's really great! Well done," she complimented and her words echoed off the wall and interrupted the quiet conversation of the three men.

"Could you stop that?" Heero hissed.

"I told you: we are going to be celebrating the small victories. You might as well get used to it, because I'm going to be cheering you on every step of the way."

"Great," he ground out.

Verreaux waded over to the front of the basin, stepping off the treadmill. Heero adjusted his position, facing forward – facing Doctor Verreaux – and gripping the bars on either side of him. He could see his own, pale legs on a monitor to Verreaux's left, by the controls for the treadmill. An underwater camera would keep track of his movements, so they could study his progress – if there would even be any.

"Ready?"

"Hn."

With a beep the treadmill was switched on, set to a slow speed. Heero walked awkwardly. His legs were stiff because he couldn't make his knees bend and he had little control over his ankles and toes. But as long as he kept himself balanced, he could walk.

Just as she had said, Verreaux cheered him on, studying the jerky movement of his legs on the screen and regularly finding new ways to compliment him. He just tuned her out and focused on his walk.

They spent an hour and a half in the pool and then she helped him out of the water and back into the wheelchair. Luckily, there was no audience around.

He went back into the basin with her every day, for one- to two-hour sessions. After shorter sessions, they would do more exercises upstairs, which had him lying on the massage table again. Repetition was the key to success, she reminded him whenever he got impatient and irritable and over time the flexibility in and control over his ankles and toes increased, as she pointed out to him. His knees, however, remained locked. The hydraulics in the knee joints were more powerful and required a strong, focused brain signal to respond. Verreaux compared it to exercising a muscle; not until it reached a certain threshold could it lift a heavy weight. She kept telling him to visualize his walk and she always had the monitor turned away from him, so he couldn't fixate on the actual, retarded locomotion of his legs.

The hint of shyness that she had displayed when they first met was soon gone and she became very adept at ignoring him whenever he was giving her his death death-glare and she always remained chipper, even when he was punching the surface of the water in frustration.

He was in the basin again and he was starting to get exhausted, but he pushed through it, clenching his fingers around the bars on either side of him. She had turned up the speed of the treadmill to a walking pace that would have been more normal for him before, but now – after an hour and a half of walking through the water – he was having trouble keeping up.

Verreaux alternated her gaze between his red face and the monitor and she was smiling. "How are you holding up?" She inquired.

"Fine," he huffed.

"Not tired?"

"I could do this all day."

Her smile brightened at his dry joke. "You're doing so great, Heero. I'm so proud of you."

He rolled his eyes at her optimism. "Yeah, yeah, yeah…"

"No, I mean it," she said poignantly. "See for yourself." She reached for the corner of the monitor and swiveled it around until the screen was facing Heero.

He redirected his annoyed gaze from her beaming face to the monitor and his expression went blank with shock. The pair of legs he was looking at were moving perfectly, bending slightly at the knee with each forward step, feet landing heel-first and then the foot rolled nicely and the toes left the surface of the treadmill last. The movements were fluid and seemingly effortless. He looked to Verreaux again and her eyes were watery although her smile was brighter than he had ever seen it.

"You're doing it!" She exclaimed excitedly.

Momentarily his left knee locked up and his step faltered, but when he squeezed his eyes shut and visualized his walk again, like his therapist had instructed him, he got his stride back and when he dared to look at the screen again he could see that he was still walking normally. "Yeah…" He agreed breathlessly.

"Well?" She prodded, disappointed by his flat reaction. She should have known better than to expect any show of excitement from him, she knew him quite well by then. "Isn't this amazing?"

Was it? Three weeks of hard work and he was walking again; underwater, holding himself upright with his arms. If that was any indication for what was to come, he was only discouraged by it. He had put in so much effort. He had been exhausted every day, so much so that he managed to get a few hours of sleep every night. But all of his hard work amounted to something so small. He still couldn't even get up out of his wheelchair, or roll over in bed normally.

His face twisted in anger. "This is bullshit."

"What?"

"This is fucking bullshit! Three weeks of this shit and this is it? This is supposed to make me happy? Make me _proud_? Do you have any idea who I am- who I _was_?! What I could do?! This is nothing! I'm still nothing!" He slammed his hand into the water. "Stop this fucking treadmill. Stop it, right now!"

"Heero, you have to realize that this is only the beginning. It will get better."

"When? A year from now? Two years? And then what? I'm supposed to be elated that I can break out in a light jog, or stand up to take a piss? _What_?" His anger made way for something else, something new, something he didn't know how to handle. He was trembling and hyperventilating and his skin was crawling.

Verreaux didn't stop the treadmill, she didn't want to let him quit, but he was done with everything. He turned his body sideways and tried to lift himself out of the water, but his energy was completely spent and he was still weakened from a poor diet. He couldn't even raise himself onto the edge. With a beep the treadmill came to a halt under his feet before it would make him lose his footing. She approached him and it had him tensing up even further. She reached her hands out for him and he shrunk in on himself, pressing his arms close to his body and ducking his head between his shoulders. "No, don't do that. I don't like that," he declared and she damn well knew not to touch him more than was absolutely necessary – he had warned her often enough and he had warned Hannigan too, with his fists.

But Verreaux didn't listen to him and didn't let herself get pushed away and she ended up enveloping him in her arms.

He went rigid in her embrace. The only person he had ever allowed to hug him was Duo and he became more distraught when he tried to remember when that was last. He felt her skinny arms along his back and chest, her soft breasts pressed against one bicep, her fingers pressing into the other. Her cheek was on his shoulder and a curl tickled his ear – she wasn't wearing her white cap today.

He squeezed his eyes shut and had no choice but to surrender. He wasn't going to hit a girl, the way he punched Hannigan to get him to back off when he was trying to help him put his pants back on.

"This isn't me. This isn't me. This isn't me," he kept repeating. For the sake of his pride, he needed her to know that and he needed to remind himself as well. He was supposed to be strong, and level-headed and in control of his body, his mind and the situation.

Her thumb rubbed back and forth on his arm and she held him tighter still as she promised him: "You will be yourself again."

That was the first time anyone had said that to him since waking up from his coma, and it helped.


	12. Chapter 12

**This will probably be your last chance to vote! Once I post this chapter, I'm only 5 thousand words short of 2 million and the winning story should be announced in the chapter that breaks that milestone. **

**So: vote for the final time! It doesn't matter if you already voted. **

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part XII – Duo's POV**

Duo slept away most of his days in a drunken stupor. In his nightmares he was lost in darkness and whispers disoriented him and drew him further into a thick fog that filled his lungs and slowly suffocated him.

His life was void of responsibilities, duties and also privileges. He had nothing to do but drink and sleep, thinking to eat only on the rare occasions that he was lucid enough to realize his body needed food more than it did alcohol. Drinking didn't make him feel any better, but that wasn't the point. The alcohol only made him feel worse, it made the thoughts in his head feel heavy and weight him down. The weight of it was so real, he could feel it in an ache in his shoulders. His heart felt heavy too, and every heartbeat was like someone clawing into his chest and squeezing it in an iron fist. He knew exactly whose hand it was.

He hadn't talked to Heero since he had answered his call that one night, many months ago. The shrill cry of the phone woke Duo up every night like clockwork, at three thirty, but he never answered again. He held the phone, cradled it in his palms and stared with dead eyes at the name lighting up on the screen. He felt it vibrate in his hands; trembling like a small, frightening animal, wounded and in need of help, crying out for it. He didn't trust himself with it. He broke things. He killed things. He couldn't save anyone. Bringing death was his forte, not bringing life. He never saved Heero to begin with, he just killed him in a more prolonged, violent manner – in a way he knew Heero feared most, taking away what made him strong and what gave him purpose, taking away the one thing that Heero agreed made his life worth living.

Duo still remembered that night, when they were both just fifteen years old, and Doctor J ordered Heero to stop fighting. If he couldn't fight, then he was expendable – worthless. Without a moment's hesitation, the young boy had palmed the detonator of his Gundam and chose to self-destruct, rather than live for anything but the mission.

It had been naïve of him to think Heero had changed enough to be able to survive beyond being a soldier. It had been even more naïve of Duo to think that he had changed him. In spite of how hard they had both fought to achieve it, their life together meant nothing to the Japanese man. For years Duo had tricked himself into thinking that one day he could be enough for Heero. That Duo could be Heero's happiness, his purpose, his sense of belonging. The reality was very different and it was very wry. It made Duo rethink his own reason for living. He had been a skilled pilot and he had advanced even further as a Preventer agent, and he felt like it was the only way he could repay the world from the wrongs that he done, but it wasn't enough to fulfill him anymore; to make his life worth living. Heero was his purpose and he felt empty and aimless without him, but he had no right to reclaim him.

He shuffled to the kitchen and ate two handfuls of stale cereal out of the open box on the counter and washed it down with a gulp of beer.

It was pathetic. He was being pathetic. Heero would be ashamed of him if he were to see him like that, which was just another motivator to not let his former partner see him.

The Japanese man had come to the house twice and every time Duo pretended not be home, even though he knew Heero would know better. He just bundled himself up in his own arms and waited for him to leave again before he dared to move from his spot.

He ignored his other friends too. WuFei didn't want to see him, the Major had made that very clear when Duo last saw him; the day he handed in his resignation. Quatre and Trowa needed some distance too after first hearing the full truth, but lately the pair had been trying to reach out. Whenever the phone rang during the day, Duo knew it was Quatre. He didn't answer his calls eithers. He knew Quatre was ready to forgive him – that was the kind of person Quatre was – but Duo didn't deserve anyone's forgiveness. He wasn't done punishing himself yet and he might never be.

The softness of the couch lured him back. His body was weak and his legs were unsteady. He gratefully dropped back down into the leather seat and melted into it. The TV was a black screen in front of him; a black void he stared into.

Outside the UV lights of the colony came on, mimicking a sunrise and Duo turned his head away as soon as he was able to discern his own image in the reflection of the screen. He looked as wrecked as he felt. He hadn't bothered to take a shower in several days and he'd been wearing the same shirt all week. His hair was stringy, greasy and matted. His clothes wrinkled and dirty from spilling on it. The unkempt stubble on his chin and jaw added ten years to him. The dark circles under his eyes added twenty.

He grimaced and scrubbed his face with his hands, scratching through the prickly hairs. He released a bitter chuckle into his palm.

"It's not like you had your legs cut off, Maxwell," he groused to himself. But it did feel that way, it did feel like his legs had been cut out from under him. He had lost his footing and he was still falling. He had yet to find out where he would land. In the meantime, time rushed by him without giving him a moment to breathe, to adjust, to make sense of the changes around him. One moment he was lying in his bed with his lover wrapped up in his arms, the next moment he was there, on the couch, reeking of alcohol and his own sweat, sinking away into the leather of the couch. It had been so easy to let it happen too, like being carried away on a current stronger than him.

He was lightheaded, more from not eating sufficiently than from the alcohol consumption. If his headache was any reliable indicator, he actually hadn't had that much to drink in the past twenty-four hours and the effects of withdrawal were starting to kick in. He couldn't move, not to eat and not even to drink, so he slept instead, even though he never woke up any more energized.

The doorbell – and then someone slamming their fist against the door – startled him awake. He flinched at the loud, persistent banging on his door and the irritating, impatient way this person kept ringing the doorbell. The delicate chime used to give him a homely feel, but this house was just a house nowadays, not a home, and the sound made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end because he had come to hate it.

Duo blinked his eyes open to study his surroundings and confirm he was still on the couch in the living room, sagging in the seat, nearly slipping off the smooth leather. Outside, the light was orange, so it must be getting late, alerting him that he had slept through the day. He was fine with that and he was annoyed that someone had interrupted his sleep. He had every intention of ignoring whoever it was, but this person was not giving up. He wondered, with a clench of his heart, if it was Heero. It certainly wasn't Quatre or Trowa, he could tell that much.

"Open up, Maxwell! I know you're in there!" The person bellowed.

Duo frowned at the voice and it took him a moment to identify it.

It was Luca Swafford – _Swagger_.

He hadn't seen any of his former teammates since resigning from the agency and he didn't want to, but it was obvious Swafford wasn't going to let him ignore him.

With a grunt he pushed himself up from the couch and waited for the blackness to fade from his vision and he could see again. He shuffled towards the door and as soon as he had unlocked it and turned the knob, Swafford forced it open and stormed into the house.

"Yeah, sure, come in," he said dryly and he weakly closed the door. "Make yourself at home." He turned to face his visitor and the man's red, angry face concerned him.

Then Swafford wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You stink. This place reeks." He looked around himself, his gaze flitting from one empty bottle to the next.

"Unless you've come here to clean up, that's really none of your business." He leaned back against the front door, needing it for support. "What are you doing here?"

Swafford redirected his attention to him. His glare was intimidating and would have even made Heero proud. "You can punish yourself as much as you want, but I am here to let you know that it will never be enough," he hissed and he took a step closer to jab a finger at Duo's chest. "I'm not going to let you get away with it."

He pushed the prodding hand away. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I know what they did," he declared, "Now all three of them are dead, and I'm supposed to believe that's a coincidence?"

Duo slid away from the wall and walked across the living room to create some much needed distance between the two of them. The way Swafford was seething at him it was clear he was having trouble to contain his rage. "What exactly are you accusing me of?" He countered with a frown.

"You killed them!" He burst and took a step towards him. His entire body was vibrating with anger and his fists were clenched at his sides.

Duo recoiled in shock at the accusation. The hurt of having someone he used to trust think him capable of something like that cut through the thick fog of apathy that occupied his mind. The hurt was soon replaced by his own anger and it was his turn to point a finger. "Fuck you, Swafford."

"You got rid of them to keep your secret!"

"… I didn't…" He breathed, all energy draining from his body.

"Then what the fuck do you want me to believe happened?" He challenged.

"Everything just went to shit."

Swafford snorted. "Don't try to sell me that. We had everything prepared. It should have gone perfectly. You did something!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did something," he agreed. "I let three rookie agents blackmail me into coming on that Goddamn mission with us!" He admitted.

It was a truth Swafford had already figured out on his own, making him one of only five people to know of the grave mistake Duo had made; the other three being WuFei, Quatre and Trowa. But even though he already knew, the confession triggered the agent regardless.

Duo never even saw the first punch coming. Swafford's fist cracked along his jaw and snapped his head back. The second punch he watched happen in slow-motion, but he did nothing to block it and protect himself. The knuckles of Swafford right fist landed on his cheekbone and shortly after his left fist impacted with Duo's abdomen. With a grunt he fell backwards, hitting his head against the wall behind him before slumping down to the floor. He opened his eyes and stared at the boot that came for his chest and kicked the wind out of him.

"Don't put this on them," the agent said through gritted teeth as he continued to kick the man while he was down. "It wasn't their fault everything went wrong." He sounded like he needed to believe that, but was having trouble convincing himself. "You let them come along so you could get rid of them."

Duo squeezed his eyes shut and let Swafford vent his anger on him. He was becoming numb to the pain anyway. Nothing the man could do to him could hurt worse than what he had been doing to himself.

But then Swafford said something he shouldn't have: "If Yuy was in on it, he got what he deserved."

Duo went blind again – blind with rage. In one fluid motion he got up from the floor, coiled his arm back and slung his fist at Swafford's face. His knuckles his him on his right temple and instantly the man's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell backwards. His limp body hit the floor with a loud thud. The long-haired man reached behind himself to steady himself against the wall. His cheeks puffed out as he released a deep breath and he stared down at the unconscious agent on the floor.

"… Shit…" he grumbled and as soon as he was confident he wasn't going to pass out himself, he stepped over Swafford's outstretched limbs and trotted over to the kitchen. He checked the freezer, but he didn't have any ice, so he grabbed a frozen microwave meal instead and wrapped it up in the last of the clean dishtowels as he walked back over to Swafford. He crouched down on the floor and held the make-shift ice-pack against the man's temple. "Come on, you pussy," he urged, "wake up." He softly slapped his cheek until his eyelids began to flutter.

When he came to, Swafford shot upright only to regret it instantly. He groaned in pain and clutched his head. "What did you hit me with?"

"My fist."

He cocked his head to look at Duo over his shoulder, squinting his eyes in both pain and disbelief. "Jesus Christ." He accepted the dishtowel with the frozen dinner that Duo held out to him and pressed it against the side of his face.

Duo studied him for a minute to make sure he was alright. The man appeared alert and in control of his movements. He was fine. Duo scrambled up to his feet and stoically walked over to the front door that he held open for him. "Get out," he ordered. "Report your suspicions to Major Chang if you're so sure. But don't ever drag Heero into this again. He's suffered enough."

Swafford carefully got up from the floor and limped towards him. Standing at the threshold, he held the frozen dinner out to him.

"Keep it. Enjoy. Four minutes on high." He slammed the door shut behind Swafford.

He dragged himself back to the kitchen for another serving of stale cereal and before long he was back on the couch where he preferred to be, alone with his misery. He closed his eyes and hoped to slip into a state of semi-consciousness, where nothing existed, not even his thoughts. But Swafford's visit had provoked memories they chased him down and wouldn't let him be.

He had been in the equipment room, checking items off a list to ensure their two backpacks were loaded with everything they needed, when Viver and Grace joined him in the rightly aisle between stacked metal shelving. He had heard them close the door behind them before they approached him.

He didn't acknowledge him until he had checked off the last item on the list and he zipped up the backpack at his feet. "Something I can help you with?" He asked with a purse of his lips. It was T minus sixteen hours and he was sure there were other places the two of them needed to be in preparation of the mission. Just because they weren't coming out into the field with him and Heero, didn't mean they were any less important cogs in the machine.

"We have something we need to discuss with you," Haywire declared.

"Take it up with Yuy," he said dismissively. The team members always complained to him about anything and everything because their other team captain was too intimidating for them. But, honestly, if what they had to say wasn't important enough to brave a confrontation with Heero, than it wasn't important enough to be said so close to a vital mission.

He had succeeded in brushing them off in the past by employing this technique, but that time neither Haywire nor Viv left. He rolled his eyes and looked at them expectantly. "Spit it out."

"We want to come out into the field with you," Viv said. She could always be counted on to get right to the point. She added as an afterthought: "Beck too."

Duo snorted. He picked up the two heavy backpacks, loaded with explosives and tools, and carried them to a table against the far wall. "No," he said simply and they shouldn't have expected a different response. He heard their footsteps trailing him and he spun around to face them. "I get it, okay? You're eager to get out there. And if it were solely up to me, you would have been out in the field with us a while ago. But it's not just my decision and I'm not going to argue with Heero's call on this one. This is not the kind of mission to be anyone's first."

"You are going to talk Yuy into letting us come with you," Viv asserted. Haywire nodded along.

Duo let out a chuckle and quirked his eyebrow at their unexplained confidence. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And why the Heck would I do that?"

"Because we are going to convince you that it will be best for you and Yuy."

He leaned back against the edge of the table and folded his arms in front of his chest. This ought to be good, he thought to himself, amused by the odd situation. "Alright. Give it your best shot. Convince me. Blow my mind," he jested.

Both Viver and Grace smirked and it unnerved Duo. "We know the truth about you and Yuy."

A chill went down Duo's spine. _They found out we were Gundam pilots?_ He asked himself.

"If you don't want Major Chang to know the truth, you will let us come along on this mission," Viver threatened.

A smirk tugged at Duo's lips, imaging how that conversation would go down in Chang's office and the look on the Chinese agent's face, having to pretend to be shocked by the revelation that his two best agents were former Gundam pilots. "Really? You are going to try to blackmail us? Let's go upstairs right now and have that chat with Major Chang. I'll wait outside."

The two of them shared a look, but they weren't deterred by his unexpected reaction. "You don't want us to do that. As soon as Major Chang finds out about you two lovebirds, he will ground you and have you separated."

Duo's smirk faltered. _Lovebirds?_ His heart started to race as it dawned on him that the two of them hadn't uncovered their past identity, but had uncovered their current relationship instead. Their relationship which violated the most strict of the Preventer protocols – Protocols that WuFei was devoted to. They were right, if they told the Major about Duo and Heero being together, WuFei would dismiss one of them. The man's loyalty to them as a former ally would not stand in the way of the Major honoring the rules of the Preventer agency. In a flash Duo remembered the conversation he had had with Heero after they found out someone on another team had been grounded because of a relationship that defied regulations. Heero had offhandedly announced that if that were to happen to them, he would file for reassignment to a different faction of the Agency: on a different colony, or on Earth. What would happen to them if they could no longer work together?

Viver and Grace grinned as they saw the effect their threat had on him now.

He was so caught off guard that the shock was apparent on his face – with his pale complexion and wide eyes – so he couldn't even try to deny it. "How did you even find out?" They had always been so careful at the office.

"Beck found out that you two are living together at your house. Heero's apartment is just to keep up pretenses. Also, he hacked into the surveillance system and caught you sneaking into Heero's room last night."

"Beck had no fucking right to stick his nose where it didn't belong," he hissed. He didn't believe the nervous, kindhearted agent would think to do something like that on his own accord; Grace and Viver probably bullied him into using his hacking skills for digging up dirt on the two co-captains.

"Oh, you mean he had no right to break the rules?" Viver shot back. "What about you and Yuy? What gives you the right to break the rules, shacking up together?"

"That's different!"

"Because you love him, right?" Viver pestered him melodramatically. "If you love him, you'll let the three of us come along and nothing has to change between the two of you."

"This should be a no-brainer," Grave chimed in, spurred on by his teammate's defiant attitude. "You know we are good agents. You know it has been unfair of Yuy to have kept us chained to a desk this long. We're better than this."

"You have yet to prove that," he seethed. "At this point, I'm not all that impressed with the two of you anymore." He had trusted their skills, but he couldn't trust their character anymore. He felt their insubordination and arrogance would be more likely to jeopardize the mission than lacking capabilities and that made him most hesitant to give into their threat, in spite of the consequences that would have for his relationship with Heero.

"If you don't convince Yuy to let us come along, we are going to talk to Major Chang today and our entire team will get pulled off the assignment. The mission will have to be postponed until a new team can get prepped and who knows what could happen with those nuclear missiles in the meantime. Could you be at peace with that?" Viver challenged.

"Could you?" Duo bit back.

"It's not my decision," she said with a shrug.

He clenched his fists at his sides. It had been a long time since he last felt powerless and the betrayal aspect of it angered him all the more.

"I suppose we'll know soon enough what you've decided." With that said, the two of them spun around and walked away with an entitled bounce in their step.

Duo fell back against the table and clutched the edge.

He didn't only have the future of his relationship to worry about, but the safety of the people on the colonies and on earth as well. It would take several days for a new team to get ready to replace them and Duo knew damn well that no team would ever be good enough to actually replace him and Heero. This mission was too important. It needed to be done now and it needed to be done perfectly; the way only he and Heero could. WuFei would not be subject to this kind of reasoning. WuFei viewed the world in black and white and everything had to go by the rules, in spite of the history they shared together. The Chinese agent would rather risk an attack by delaying the mission in search of a new team than make the conscious decision to break the protocols that he valued above anything else.

Cornered and not seeing any way out of the situation without playing into Grace and Viver's hand, he decided that there was only one thing he could do. He sat alone in the equipment room for an hour before he went to look for his co-captain and he lied to him, not sure if he did that as a kindness towards Heero, or to selfishly protect his own ego. Either way, he felt sick to his stomach.

Duo's eyes flew open and he stared at the living room ceiling. He _still_ felt sick to his stomach.

* * *

**Last chance to vote!**


	13. Chapter 13

**This is it! With this upload I've reached 2 million words archived. That's pretty exciting to me, considering how many times I've thought about giving up on fanfiction, or even on writing altogether. So at some point during this chapter, you will see this appear: "(2)". That's the exact milestone. **

**Thanks for all of you who have supported me through 2 million words (27 stories)! Let's keep the fandom alive together! **

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part XIII – Heero's POV**

"Did they ever find my legs?" Heero inquired as he studied Verreaux's fingers on his right foot.

The doctor looked up at him with her blonde brows furrowed. "What are you asking?"

"My legs – the ones that were cut off," he clarified flatly, "did the recovery team find them?"

"Ah," she nodded once in understanding and redirected her gaze to her task, massaging his foot, even though he couldn't feel the touch of her fingers, pressing into the layer of silicone skin that covered the hard shell of the prosthetic. "Would that have helped you in some way? To see them?"

He sighed and tilted his head. He watched her for a second longer and then said with tight lips: "You sound like a shrink when you answer a question with a question."

Her laughter was bubbly. "Ouch! I know that is quite the insult, coming from you." Her eyes flitted up at him. The green of her eyes sparkled like a forest after summer rain. "Is Adam giving you a hard time?"

"_Doctor Adams_ can't be anything but nice, even if he tried." The psychologists name was Doctor Adam Adams, which Heero was at first convinced was a very unfunny joke. Doctor Adams insisted that Heero – and everyone else – called him by his first name, but Heero refused to, out of spite. Doctor Adams said Heero did it because it was his only way to assert control over their relationship, being forced by the Agency to meet with the shrink on a bi-weekly basis if he was serious about ever being reinstated. Heero cared very little about what Doctor Adams said. The man was nice and the sessions were never uncomfortable because he never pried and allowed Heero to stay silent if he wanted to and allowed him to steer the conversation whichever way he wanted when he did agree to speak.

"Did you talk about your real legs with Adam?"

"These are my real legs," Heero retorted without missing a beat and he patted his knee.

Her smile became tight and disingenuous, but she recovered quickly. "Of course. But you know what I mean."

"Then: no." Doctor Adams had a very strange approach to his therapy. He never mentioned the mission nor the amputation. Whenever Heero demanded to know what he wanted form him, he simply said: "I just want to talk. What do you want to talk about?". So, this morning, they talked about Relena's campaign for reelection. Heero had expected Doctor Adams to ask him if he had seen Relena yet – which he hadn't – but he didn't.

"What got you thinking about your legs then?"

"The recovery mission was completed yesterday. The resource satellite has been fully dismantled." He had read it in the newspaper, because Major Chang still refused to answer any of his questions.

"Oh, okay. That makes sense," she mused, never letting the conversation interrupt her task, massaging him as if she honestly believed he could feel it, making sure to apply the right amount of pressure on the appendage. "I guess that sort of stuff is need-to-know basis and I'm way, _way_ out of that loop." She chuckled at herself.

"… Me too."

She glanced up at him and offered him another smile, a sympathetic one, that time. "Does this help?" She asked, referring to her massage.

"Yeah. A little." The pain in his toe was reduced to a distant throb. "It's been over six months now, shouldn't the phantom pain be gone?"

She sighed. "Unfortunately in some cases the phantom pain is more persistent, permanent even. We just have to find a way to help you cope. You should keep massaging the foot regularly, like you've been doing. But you should also consider taking the legs off once in a while. You said the pain stopped completely when they're off, right?"

"I don't want to take them off," he said adamantly. Real legs aren't supposed to be detachable.

"Well… you should consider it," she suggested, knowing to be cautious with giving him any orders when it came to this. She concluded the massage with a gentle squeeze to his ankle and then she rose up from her seat and handed him back his socks and shoes.

After putting them back on, Heero swung his legs over the edge of the table and stood up. He caught Verreaux looking at him but when she realized her stare hadn't gone unnoticed she practically pressed her nose into his file.

"I- uh… I guess this was our last session together," she concluded. "The Preventer Rehabilitation Center is officially terminating your treatment plan. You've made a complete recovery."

"Not quite," he argued. He could function normally again, but he had a higher goal to attain than being able to walk up and down a flight of stairs and kick a ball. He had been working out every single day, to rebuild his body and regain his strength. He was able to run again, which meant he was getting more sleep and his appetite had returned to him. He had progressed beyond the expectations of the professionals that had been managing his recovery and he aimed to go further. Once he had Major Chang's permission, he wanted to start training for The Twelve, so he could go back on duty.

"You'll get there. You've proved everyone wrong so far."

"Hn."

Verreaux smirked and put her hands on her hips. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Hn."

She chuckled and shook her head at him, making her curls bounce. "I'll take it." She looked him up and down in awe. "These pas three and a half months have flown by."

"You think so?" He opposed. That certainly wasn't in line with his experience. The past three and a half months have felt like a lifetime to him: a lifetime of hard work.

"I think I might actually miss you," she admitted, feigning shock. "I've grown quite fond of your brand of rude and insufferable."

He knew she wanted him to smile at her joke, but a smile never came easily to him and lately he hadn't been able to smile at all. In many ways he was more like the fifteen-year old version of himself than he had been in years. He had readopted that old, single-minded focus that he used to have, because it was the only way for him to be able to pull through. "I'm grateful for your help," he said and he meant it. It was all he could offer her.

She hugged him again and he allowed it, even though it made him tense up. "Good luck," she said when she pulled back.

He nodded once and walked away.

Heero didn't go straight home like he used to do after physical therapy. He took the elevator up to the top floor of the building and made a bee-line for WuFei's office. He ignored the looks he was getting along the way as he passed the cubicles of the bullpen. He rapped his knuckles on the door of the Major's office.

There was a grumble on the other side of the door and then someone groused: "Come in!" It wasn't WuFei.

Heero pushed into the office and halted. Obviously he had interrupted a private and heated discussion.

Sally's face lit up when she recognized the intruder and she looked him up and down. "Heero! It's been too long. Look at you!"

"Close the door, please," WuFei ordered. He was still pacing back and forth behind his desk with pent-up frustration.

Heero closed the door behind him as instructed. "Sally. I didn't know you were on L1."

"I just landed like an hour ago," she explained, throwing a glance down to her watch. "I was going to come see you. Doctor Verreaux has been keeping me up-to-date on your progress, but you look even better than I imagined." She stepped towards him, with her arms widening, like she meant to come give him a hug, but she thought better of it and stopped midway and wrapped her arms around herself instead. Her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears and Heero could never tell when they were happy or sad tears. "God, you're so tall!" She exclaimed and looked to WuFei for agreement.

"Yes."

Heero hadn't realized his new legs had made him any taller until he first met up with the Major after being able to stand upright again. He and the other former Gundam pilot used to be exactly the same height and he was used to staring straight into his black eyes. It had been odd when he became aware the Chinese man now had to look up at him. He was two inches taller than he was before and when he had inquired why, the answer had been that Duo had told them to – when Heero was still in his coma and his legs were being constructed. Apparently the longhaired man had said to them that Heero always should have been taller than he was. Heero didn't understand the significance of that, but he did appreciate not having to look up at people as much as he used to, especially after months of being confined in a wheelchair, when he had to look up at everyone. More importantly: when everyone looked _down_ at him.

"How have you been?"

"I thought Verreaux was keeping you informed."

Sally sighed at him but smiled nonetheless. He had a feeling he had misunderstood her question, but she didn't rephrase it and just let it be.

"Is there anything you need, Yuy?" WuFei inquired. His words were curt. "We were kind of in the middle of something." He gestured between himself and Sally.

"I completed my rehabilitation today," he informed. "I want to enroll in the Preventers' training course in preparation for The Twelve."

Both Sally and WuFei stared at him uncomfortably long.

Heero wiggled his fingers at his sides, noting that his palms were getting sweaty at the prolonged silence.

"Heero…-" Sally started but she trailed off and looked to WuFei again.

"I don't think that is a good idea," the Major said firmly.

"Why? How else am I supposed to get reinstated after being grounded for over six months?"

Sally tried again: "You are doing so well. Why don't you take some time to appreciate how far you've come?" At his quizzical expression, she elaborated: "You have no idea what a miracle it is that you are doing as well as you are after only six months. I don't want you to set yourself up for failure."

"_Failure_?" He balled his hands into fists.

"Heero, I told you from the start: getting reinstated as a field agent is practically impossible as a double amputee."

"I'm not a double amputee," he balked. "I have legs."

"It's not the same. You're not the same. You can't hold yourself to the same standard you used to."

"What else do you expect me to do with my life?"

The corners of her mouth turned down and she instinctively reached a hand out to him before stopping herself again.

"You can still work as a Preventer agent," WuFei proffered. "Your hacking skills will be a great asset to the agency."

"The agency has dozens of hackers better than me," Heero countered. "But I am the best field agent."

"Only you're not."

WuFei's words hurt him the way he never thought words could.

"Not anymore."

He took a moment to consider his best rebuttal. "Fine. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I won't be," he said through gritted teeth. "But I was better than anyone else when I was still… myself." He swallowed. "Even now I will still be good enough to pass The Twelve."

"Still-"

"All of Team Four is nothing but a group of seventy-fivers. If they are good enough to be in the field, than so will I be."

WuFei was shaking his head and seated himself behind his desk.

"Most of the disciplines test for technical and tactical skill anyway and that hasn't changed for me."

Sally chimed in cautiously: "But Heero, how do you expect to pass the PIE's: a ten kilometer marathon, the obstacle course…?"

"I just need to retrain myself. I can do it."

"Fine," WuFei consented.

Sally snapped her head in his direction to look at him incredulously.

"If he needs to see himself fail to accept his limitations, than he should."

"Thanks," Heero growled, angered by WuFei's lack of faith in him. He was eager to prove him wrong.

"WuFei-" Sally meant to argue, but the Major dismissed any further objections.

"No. It's decided. He can train."

Sally shot the Japanese agent a worried look.

"The only ones training for The twelve right now is the Runt-Pack," WuFei stated. "You can join them starting tomorrow. I will email you their training schedule."

Heero stiffened at the idea of having to be part of every agents deprecatingly called "the Runt-Pack": the agents who couldn't pass The Twelve and were grounded until they could. The Runt-Pack consisted of older agents clinging to former glory and misguided desk-jockeys. Most would never pass. But he had to take his ego out of the equation, as he had had to do so many times in the past few months. He swallowed his pride and accepted the offer with a curt nod.

"Heero, please, don't push yourself beyond your limits. You could really hurt yourself out there."

Sally didn't understand that he had been hurting every day since waking up from his coma; suffering a pain he didn't know how to handle. Some bumps and scratches – and maybe even broken bones – were the kinds of pain he was used to and that was something he could deal with, because at least it wasn't a helpless pain.

He didn't say another word. He pivoted on his heels and walked out of the office, leaving the two of them alone again.

He took the subway back to his apartment. Now that his rehabilitation had officially been completed, he could finally apply to have his driver's license renewed and he planned to do that as soon as possible. He had been allowed to keep his wheelchair, even though he no longer had any use for it. He folded it up and stuffed it into the hallway closet; he didn't even want to look at it anymore. After a hearty dinner, he went out for a run. He couldn't run nearly as long or as fast as he used to, but he was getting better every day and he was looking forward to the training speeding up the progress of his improvement.

As promised, WuFei emailed him the training schedule of the Runt-Pack and Heero set his alarm accordingly. He was expected at the field by the Preventer office at eight the next morning. He had kept an old Preventer uniform in his closet and he retrieved it and laid it out over a chair in the corner of his bedroom. It was a navy blue tracksuit and white T-shirt, all with the Preventer logo on it. He had always been proud to wear that logo; it made him part of something bigger and more important than himself. It gave him a sense of belonging, like he had a part to fulfill in the world, like he was necessary. If not for the Preventers, who would need him? Who would benefit from his existence and what would be the point?

Duo certainly didn't need him. Heero still called him every night, even though he knew the call would never be answered. He didn't like the imbalance. He needed Duo, but Duo didn't need him. It hurt him and it didn't make sleeping any easier lately, but he couldn't give up on calling him. It kept him feeling connected to his former partner. If he stopped calling him, it felt like Duo would disappear, like he had never been there and that frightened Heero. Because if Duo never happened to him, who would Heero be? Still that fifteen year old boy, at war with himself and the world. Duo was his touchstone to remind him that the past seven years were real and that Doctor J had no power over him anymore.

At three thirty, when he returned from his nightly run to cure his insomnia, he swiped the phone off the docking station and pressed speed dial one. He held the phone between his ear and shoulder as he walked into the bedroom and turned on the shower to give the water a minute to heat up. With a hand on the edge of the sink for balance, he took off his shoes one by one and shimmied out of his sweatpants and underwear. As expected, the call went unanswered and he put the phone aside to strip off his sweat-soaked shirt so he could take a quick shower. Then, finally, he slept.

In the morning he arrived at the training fields early and he was the first one there. He set his duffel bag with clean change of clothes and towel down on the ground at the edge of the track and made use of the privacy to get reacquainted with his surroundings. He turned around and looked back at the Preventer building. He could pinpoint the exact window on the hospital floor from which he spent weeks watching the field, confined to his bed and his misery.

A group approached him, coming from the dressing rooms and Heero clenched his jaw when he realized Team Four's Captain was the Runt-Pack's instructor. Some of the other faces were familiar as well, but most of them he didn't know by name and he didn't bother with formal introductions. Everyone knew who he was, if he wasn't infamous before _that mission_, he certainly was after. Every agent knew of his fall from grace. None but the Captain even dared to look him the eyes.

"Yuy," the tall, broad-shouldered man acknowledged. "Good to have you back."

The man was lying to him out of a misguided sense of kindness.

"I guess we'll take it slow today, to ease you into it."

"That won't be necessary," Heero assured him.

"If you say so."

They started with a warm-up: five laps around the track. Heero started at the head of the pack, because he was always at the head of the pack, but after only the second go-round, his legs started to feel very heavy and sometimes his shoes scuffed the ground as he was having trouble properly picking up his feet to keep up his pace. A few yards before his third pass over the white finish-line, he was overtaken by the first of the others. Indignantly, he tried to speed up, but he faltered after only a few steps and nearly tripped over his own feet. At that point, the second and the third agent passed him by. Before he had even finished the fourth lap, he was at the back of the pack and the distance only grew larger as they circled the field a final time. Everyone was waiting for him at the finish-line and he nearly collapsed when he crossed it. His face must have been beet-red, not just from the exertion. He doubled over and sucked in large gulps of air.

"Well done, Yuy. We'll give a minute and then we'll get started on our interval training."

He meant to look up to glare at the Captain for belittling him, but when he straightened up his vision just went black and he had no choice but to lower his head again.

The entire training session was a shock to him. When he had been training on his own, he thought he had been doing well, but he had completely overestimated his abilities. A lot of the simple exercises hurt his thigh too, as it put a different pressure on his legs. The final insult to injury came when the Captain had them tackle one of the obstacles on the course: the net. The rope net hung down from a height of fifteen feet and the task was to climb to the top and then climb down the other side. It was never much of a challenge to Heero, but he discovered he had trouble aiming his feet and placing them in the netting. He struggled with his coordination and by the time he was half-way up, he gave up on trying to properly place his feet and climbed the rest of the way up using only his upper body strength instead. That wasn't as easy as it should have been either. He wasn't back to his full strength yet and it wasn't made easier by the fact that the legs added about ten extra pounds of dead weight on him.

Once he reached the top, it took his several tries to swing the first leg over the wooden beam and when he finally managed, the momentum of it nearly had him lose his grip and fall down to the ground.

The other agents were already on the ground again and everyone was looking up at him. No one said anything and it actually would have been easier if they bullied him, like they would bully anybody else who would fail so pathetically. But they all pitied him too much.

Finally, he managed to lower himself back down until his feet were planted in the dirt and he resented the compliments he received.

"I think that's enough for the PIE's for today. Let's continue with some gun drills," the Captain announced. "Heero, I know you're an ace shot, so you can take the rest of the day off."

Heero ignored him and limped after the rest of the group as they headed for the gun range.

He wasn't so much of a crack-shot as the excruciating pain in his thighs distracted him from the target up ahead, but at least he was doing better than the rest and that was a small relief. It felt good to fire a gun again. The weight of the weapon in his hand felt familiar, as did the recoil. He understood weapons better than he did people; better than he did himself.

The Captain came to stand behind him. Heero could feel his presence as the man peered over his shoulder. It made him tense up and he cursed under his breath as he fired his worst shot of the day as a result of it. It was still in the black circle of the target, but only barely. The target was littered with hole, when, usually, his aim would be so accurate his paper target would only have one hole in it, no matter how often he fired.

"I have a stool for you, if you need to sit down."

Heero cocked his head over his shoulder and finally succeeded in fixing a glare on the man. "Would I get a stool out in the field as well?"

"It's only your first day back. It's fine if you-"

"It's not," he bit back and redirected his attention to his target practice.

"… Okay. Whatever you want. But it's here if you need it." He patted the seat of the stool that he had placed to Heero's left. "None of us would think less of you if you took a break."

"No, you couldn't possibly think any less of me than you already do," Heero seethed.

"Excuse me? I am trying very hard to be accommodating here."

"Exactly. You think I can't even stand upright, how much worse than that could your view of me get?"

"Whatever, Yuy. I just prefer you sit your ass down rather than pass out, so I don't have to deal with that." Finally, the Captain of Team Four walked away.

Heero lowered his weapon and took a moment to compose himself. Then he continued his practice, just like everyone else.

He thought he would fare better the next day, but he didn't. And he didn't either the day after that. The progress was agonizingly slow and every time he achieved a small victory, he was introduced to a new experience of complete and utter humiliation. All the while the Captain and the other agents kept coddling him, helping him and _accommodating_ him. When he tried and failed tackling the ten foot tall wall for the seventh time, the Captain put a little step-up ladder in front of it and forced him to use it. Without it, he would have never made it over that wall. He used to be able to jump up, plant one foot against the wall and give himself a little extra vertical push he needed to clasp his hand over the top edge so he could pull himself up. All he did that day was just run straight into the wall. He couldn't get his leg up high enough to give him any boost. He even got a bloody nose smashing into the wall.

He never talked about any of it with Doctor Adams. And the shrink never asked. They talked about diet plans, the morning news and a new smartphone release instead – during which conversation Heero was nearly prompted to admit he had been calling Duo without answer every night, thankfully, he didn't let that slip.

He felt stuck. He was pushing himself harder than he ever had, yet it wasn't working, maybe because everyone else was giving him too much leeway. If he couldn't complete an obstacle on the course or an exercise on the track, the Captain would either exempt him and sideline him, or quickly come up with a solution or easier variation on the challenge. None of his interferences would help Heero pass the tests in the end, but if Heero refused to make use of the step-ups, chairs and ropes to help him conquer the most difficult obstacles, the Captain would just make everyone else wait for him. Heero couldn't succeed with ten pairs of eyes on him, because he couldn't fail with ten pairs of eyes on him. Failing in front of an audience was too humiliating.

His request to work out alone on the obstacle course after hours was denied, because it was deemed unsafe. That ruling probably had something to do with the several nasty falls Heero had had. Everyone was trying to protect him and – regardless of their good intentions – they were holding him back. He wasn't just fighting against the limitations of his own body, but the limitations that others imposed on him as well.

After six weeks, he still felt like he had accomplished nothing. He still couldn't climb the net. He still couldn't master the vertical wall. He still couldn't keep up with the rest on the track field. And through it all, the phantom pain in his toe was a constant distraction.

At the end of another long day, his entire body was hurting, but no part of him moreso than his thighs. The pressure of his weight on the prosthetic legs was insufferable. With the way the prosthethics were attached to his body, the load on the bottom of his thighs – Verreaux called them his "stumps" – wasn't the problem. Most of his weight was focused on the femur-implants and after overexerting himself all day with high-impact exercises, it felt like the Gundanium bone implants stabbed into his pelvis with each step.

Admitting defeat, he dug his wheelchair out of the back of his closet, unfolded it and sat himself down. At least that way he could relieve his hips while still being relatively mobile. It was a little uncanny how adept he was at maneuvering around his apartment in the chair. During the months when he had had no choice but to use it, he had found solutions for every problem. Being back in the chair was easy. It had been a very long time since anything was easy for him.

He rolled back and forth between the living room and the kitchen as he made himself dinner and put a drink, cutlery and a napkin down on the coffee table. He had switched on the television without paying attention to what channel it was on, since it didn't matter. He just liked some sound to fill the apartment. When he was done preparing his simple stir-fry, **(2)** he put the bowl in his lap, securing it between his thighs and moved over to arrange himself next to the couch. He held the bowl cradled in one hand and shoveled the food into his mouth with the fork. Most of the time, he wasn't even watching the TV screen. The program didn't interest him in the least.

Afterwards he put the dishes in the sink. He used to wash his dishes in a big plastic tub that he'd fill with hot water from the tap and soap, but he didn't feel like going through that hassle. He'd do the dishes tomorrow, after his legs had gotten some rest and he could stand again. The training that was scheduled for the next day was low intensity. They'd be running through computer simulations to hone their tactical skill. He didn't expect to have any difficulties with it and it was a relief that he would be seated for the majority of the day.

Since he had already taken a shower at the Preventer office following his day worth of intensive training, he didn't have anything to do for the rest of the night, so he planned on going to bed early. A knock on his door would seem to interfere with that.

The first thought to cross his mind was that it could be Duo and his heart skipped a beat. Duo used to be his only visitor, back when he used to live in the apartment. Heero didn't have any friends aside from the long-haired man and the other former Gundam pilots, but WuFei never interacted with him outside of work and if it was Quatre or Trowa, he would have gotten a head's up first. They always called when they were planning on stopping by on L1, as Quatre and his partner flew between the different colonies and Earth all the time for his business.

The person knocked again.

"… One second!" He rolled the wheelchair into the bedroom, out of sight, and climbed out of it. He scrunched up his face in discomfort as he straggled back to the front door to open it.

"Oh" slipped out of him when he recognized the cloud of curly, blonde hair.

Verreaux smiled at him cutely. "Hey you. Long time no see."

"Yeah." What else was he supposed to say?

"I was hoping you'd stop by the rehab center once in a while," she said with a pout.

"Why? I completed my rehab."

She chuckled at how dense he was obviously being. She waited in the hallway for a minute of uncomfortable silence until she boldly asked: "Are you going to invite me in?"

He wasn't going to; the thought didn't even occur to him. But after being prompted he stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.

She glanced around the living space but there wasn't much to look at. It was decorated only with the necessary pieces of furniture and everything was just a different shade of taupe. "This is exactly how I had imagined it," she declared.

He hesitated a moment before closing the door. He wasn't accustomed to playing host for anyone. Whenever Quatre and Trowa came over, they just made themselves at home and he was fine with that. When he had still been living at the house, Duo was the entertainer. Heero remembered that the first thing the American agent always did was offer someone something to drink, so that's what he did.

"I suppose you don't have wine or something?"

He shook his head.

"I should have brought some! Oh my God, I'm being so rude, coming over here with empty hands!" She made a face at herself. "I'll bring some wine next time."

Next time? "I have water."

"Water is fine, thank you."

He walked over to the refrigerator, trying his hardest to hide his limp. He retrieved a bottle of water and a glass and handed both to her.

"Thanks. Can I sit down?" She nodded at the couch.

"Sure."

She sat down, put her purse on the seat next to her, and poured herself a glass of water that she sipped delicately.

Heero idled in the middle of the living room. He wanted to sit down because his thighs were aching, but the couch was only small and that made him uneasy.

"How is your training going?" Verreaux inquired.

"Fine," he lied.

"How are your legs? Are you experiencing any pain?"

"Only in my toe." That was only a partial lie to obscure the full truth. His entire lower body was in pain from the physical strain, but it was true that his toe still inexplicably hurt as well.

"Would you like me to massage it for you?"

"I can massage it myself."

"I know, and so could I," she shot back smartly.

He considered the offer briefly before agreeing. Her giving him a foot massage was something normal between the two of them – she used to do it all the time. Doing something normal would make him feel less out of his element. At least he'd have a better idea of how to act and what to expect.

"Alright." She put the glass away on the coffee table and studied the couch for only a second before she suggested: "You should lie down on the bed. The couch is a little small."

He didn't question her and started for the bedroom. She followed behind closely.

When he walked into the bedroom he grimaced at the sight of the wheelchair and it had him freezing up. He hadn't wanted anyone to see it, not even Doctor Verreaux, regardless of how often she had seen it and had seen Heero in it.

Verreaux walked past him without batting an eye and wordlessly rolled the wheelchair into a corner and out of their path. She didn't ask why he had been using it, she didn't even acknowledge that it had ever been there. She seated herself on the foot of the perfectly made bed and patted the mattress with an unassuming smile.

Heero lay down on his back on top of his sheets. He was already barefoot. He was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of baggy boxers. It hadn't occurred to him that he wasn't appropriately dressed to receive guests. With his head raised on the pillow, he could look down his body and he watched Verreaux take the right foot into her hand. She let the heel rest in the palm of her left hand and massaged the unarticulated toes with her right. He noticed she was wearing a pretty nail polish and frowned at himself. That was a random thing to notice.

"I've missed you," she admitted.

Heero stared. He wasn't expecting that and he didn't know how to handle that confession.

"I really like you, Heero."

"… Oh."

She snickered. "I'm sorry for being so blunt. But I don't think you're the kind of guy who can figure that out by himself."

He definitely wasn't.

"I know it's not professional of me, but you gave me butterflies when we were working together." She looked away bashfully. "Since you're not my patient anymore, I figured I could tell you." She looked at him again, her eyes searching, but Heero didn't know for what.

She continued her massage. It wasn't the actual massage that alleviated his pain, it took watching her – or his own – fingers touching his foot and not being able to feel it for his brain to register that the pain it had been experiencing wasn't real, since there wasn't any sensation in the limb. After a few minutes of observing her fingers digs into the silicone layer of skin, the throbbing in his toe subsided and he relaxed visibly. It was always a relief whenever it was gone. He knew it was only temporary, but he enjoyed it anyway. Living with the incessant pain was exhausting; it drained him mentally. Every day, all day, was a struggle to pull his focus away from the throbbing and sometimes piercing pain in his toe and redirect it to whatever actually needed his attention.

"Feel better?" She asked, noticing the change in his posture.

"Yeah." He let his head sink back into the pillow and he breathed in deeply.

"That's good…" Verreaux said, her voice going soft.

The mattress dipped as she scooted further up the bed until she was sitting next to his hips. He met her gaze and was drawn by her green eyes without understanding why. She had a mischievous little smirk on her lips that he recognized. Duo used to look at him like that, right before he'd whisper something dirty in his ear. Fueled by curiosity, Heero sat upright. When he noticed how closely they were seated together, he ducked his head between his shoulders slightly, but he didn't shy away. He did, however, find it too difficult to hold her gaze, so he looked down at his feet instead.

"I want to make you feel good, Heero," she whispered. Her hand appeared on his body again, on his upper thigh that time, so he could feel it.

As soon as he realized he was holding his breath, he forced an exhale and the breath came out shaky. He felt her hair against his cheek before he felt her lips against the corner of his mouth, placing a chaste kiss there. She pulled back only a little, not far enough for her curly hair to stop tickling his face.

When she leaned in again, he turned his head just enough for their lips to meet. Her mouth felt soft and shy against his, it was unlike anything he was used to. They paused for a breath and then she kissed him again, but with more purpose. He parted his lips for her, the way he always parted his lips for Duo. Letting Duo take control had always been such a liberating experience and he was hoping she could offer the same. Unexpectedly, she chuckled against his mouth, but then she licked past his lips and coaxed his tongue into playing with hers.

She pulled back again and disclosed: "This isn't how I had imagined it."

"I'm sorry."

She pressed smiling lips against his before assuring him: "No, no, I don't mean it in a bad way. I'm pleasantly surprised." She grabbed the hem of his shirt. "May I?"

He shrugged and raised his arms over his head as she pulled the shirt off of him. Hesitant fingers traced the scars on his body, starting at the bullet wound on his shoulder from when Duo had shot him and then traveling down; following the scars down to the waistband of his boxers, into which twin scars from one of his recent surgeries disappeared. The scars were seams starting at the front of his thighs, at the bottom of his "stumps" and going all the way up in a straight line to either hipbone. It was how they had opened him up to replace his femurs with the Gundanium implants that connected his new legs.

They kissed again and when Verreaux brought one hand up to cup the back of his head, he mirrored that and buried the fingers of his right hand into her thick hair. She leaned into him and her felt her breasts pressed against him. She was wearing nothing but a thin summer dress.

Heero flinched when her other hand dropped into his lap and fondled him through his underwear. He hadn't even been aware of his cock getting hard, tenting his loose boxers, until she drew his attention to it.

"Do you want me to stop, Heero?"

Did he? "… No."

She explored the shape of him before enveloping him in her hand and giving a few tugs that wrought a surprised cry out of him and he nuzzled his nose into the crook of her neck. Masturbation hadn't provided him much relief lately and he was caught off guard by the pleasure that arced through his body. He didn't know why she could make him feel so good when he himself had failed, but he welcomed it.

Before long he was lying on his back again and she had helped him take off his underwear. He didn't feel ashamed of his body around her, because she had seen him in his worst and most weak state and was apparently still attracted to him and that amazed him. It made him realize how much it hurt that Duo had discarded him, now that he was a shadow of his former self, but he pushed those feelings away and focused on the sensations in his body instead. She offered him a pleasure that clouded the pain.

Standing next to the bed, Verreaux untied her dress and let it pool at her feet. She stepped out of her underwear before carefully climbing on top of him, straddling his hips. She bent down for another kiss – a deep kiss – and directed his hands onto her breasts and encouraged him to familiarize himself with her body. The kiss was endless as his fingers traveled over her skin. Everything about her was soft. Her skin was soft. Her breasts were soft. Her belly was soft. Her buttocks were soft. Her thighs were soft. She was unlike Duo in every way, but he liked it anyway. His penis was sandwiched between them and he felt her getting wet, in spite of the fact that he had no idea how to touch her and how to please her.

Then she broke the kiss and sat up suddenly. She looked expectantly at the nightstand when she asked: "Where do you keep the condoms?"

Condoms? He never used condoms with Duo, so he didn't have any. "I- I don't have any."

"Oh, okay." She leaned forward to planted a kiss on his lips and he barely had time to react before she climbed off of him and the bed. "I'll be right back."

He laid frozen in bed, wondering what she was doing. He drummed his fingers against his outer thighs. His cock was twitching.

Verreaux returned shortly, holding something silver in her hand that she unfolded to show it were two foil packets. "Good thing I always keep condoms in my purse, just in case." She mounted him again and tore the two packets free from another. She put one on the nightstand and handed the other to him, sitting back on his thighs so she wasn't on top of his erection.

He tore the packet open and put the slippery latex on the tip of his cock. He tried to roll it down, but it just bounced back up.

Before he even figured out he was doing something wrong, Verreaux took the condom from him and flipped it over and then easily rolled it down his length with a light touch. Heero swallowed audibly. When she scooted forward and got into position, planting her hands onto the pillow on either side of his head, he instinctively put his hands on her hips. She reached down and held him at the right angle by the base and slowly eased herself down onto him. Her body welcomed him inside. His mouth dropped open in a soundless moan.

She moved up and down, being careful not to hurt his sore hips and legs even though he never told her he had been hurting. She just understood this new body of his, better than he himself did. He let his fingers dig into her soft flesh and released a reluctant moan. He tossed his head back and bit his bottom lip.

Her hands caressed his chest and then moved up his neck and cradled his face. Her lips descended on his sweetly. He had trouble returning her kiss; the pleasure was distracting. His abdomen tightened and he twisted his head away, holding back an orgasm that nearly caught him off guard. Verreaux's fingers threaded through his hair and she kissed his cheek and ear and whispered: "It's okay, Heero." And she smiled at him like she knew something he had never told her. That he had never been with a woman before.

He felt guilty for taking pleasure without being able to return it. He didn't have that with Duo; Duo knew exactly how to generously give pleasure while taking it from him at the same time and Heero didn't have to worry about any of it. If he just let go, his body knew what to do when he was with Duo. But this wasn't Duo. And this wasn't Heero's body – not really.

He groaned and tensed up, fighting the onset of his climax. Even with Duo he usually lasted longer than this, but it had been so long since he last had a satisfying release and he needed it. He put his hands on her breasts again and met her lips in another kiss, wanting to make her feel as good, but he didn't know how.

"It's okay, Heero," his lover repeated quietly. "This is for you."

"Nnn!" He shifted his hands back to her hips, holding them tightly but not able to stop them from rolling on top of him. He opened his mouth and a strangled cry escaped him as his orgasm would be denied no longer. Instinctively he rocked up into her, riding out the waves of his release.

Her fingers petted through his hair and she whispered soothing words to him that he heard without understanding.

Finally, he relaxed and he felt like his heavy body was sinking into the mattress. His head was heaviest of all. He closed his eyes and needed a moment to catch his breath. In the meantime, Verreaux slid off him, rid him of the condom – and he didn't know where it went after that – and she draped herself against his side. Her breath swept across his sweaty chest.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing he said. He pried his eyes open but looked at the ceiling in favor of meeting her gaze.

"Don't be. It was lovely."

He felt tired and he struggled to keep his eyes open. He wasn't sure how much time had passed and whether he had fallen asleep in the meantime, when she spoke up next.

"Can I ask you something?"

"… Am I allowed not to answer if I don't want to?"

"Of course."

"Okay."

More time passed, without him being able to tell if it was only a few seconds or several minutes.

"Were you a virgin?" She asked softly.

"No."

"Oh… It felt like it was your first time." She hurried to add: "I don't mean that in a bad way. You were just so… sweet and tender." She pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

He thought for a moment and concluded: "It was a first time, in a way."

"In what way?"

"I've only ever had sex with a man," he replied calmly.

"Oh…" She shifted, but didn't roll away from him.

He wondered if that was something he shouldn't have said; if it was something bad. He had never given the significance of it much thought. It seemed significant to Verreaux.

"… '_A man_' or 'men'?" She asked to clarify.

He paused to consider the distinction and the relevance of it. "A man."

"I had no idea."

"How were you supposed to?" He countered.

"Usually, I can see it sooner if someone I'm in love with is in love with someone else."

Heero frowned, trying to figure out how she had come to the conclusion that he was in love with Duo. "But I didn't say that."

"I know… But I can see it now."

That didn't make any sense to him at all. He didn't think he was in love with Duo – he wasn't sure if he was capable of that – but he knew for certain that he wasn't in love with Verreaux and he apologized for not being able to reciprocate her feelings.

"It's okay. Don't worry about it. I meant what I said: tonight was for you. I wanted to make you feel good."

"… Thank you." He didn't know what else to say.

She propped her head up in her palm and smiled at him. She kissed him one more time before resting her head on his chest and she told him: "Just go to sleep."

He didn't expect to be able to sleep with her in his bed with him, but at some point his world went dark and everything disappeared into the blackness.

When he opened his eyes again, he was alone, with the sheets folded over to cover him. He glanced sideways at the alarm clock.

It was three thirty AM.

He flicked on the light and pushed himself up into a seated position. He noticed Verreaux's dress and panties were no longer on the floor, but the second condom was still on the nightstand and he supposed that was some kind of message that was just lost on him.

The pain in his thighs and hips was distant after getting some rest, but unfortunately his big toe was starting to hurt again. He threw his legs over the edge of the bed and got out. He walked into the living room naked. The purse was no longer on the couch and even the bottle and glass of water had been cleared away from the coffee table. He lifted the phone out of the docking station and sat down on the couch, pulling his feet up into the seat and tucking his knees under his chin. The silicone skin felt cool. He pressed speed dial one but didn't even hold the phone up to his ear. He cradled it on front of him, listening to the muted tones as it rang and watched that single word light up on the screen.

_Home_.

For the first time, Heero hung up before the call was automatically aborted as it went unanswered. He put it aside and wrapped his arms around his legs and stared at the streetlight outside the window.

He thought about the years he spent with Duo, the weeks he spent with the Runt-Pack and the night he spent with Verreaux. He needed to get away from it all; away from everyone's expectations and limitations, including his own. He wasn't the same person anymore, so if he wanted to move forward, he shouldn't stay in the same place, living in the shadow of his old self.

He needed a fresh start.

* * *

**And the WINNER of the voting is (drumroll): **

**Ascendant but Obsequious**

**This story won the poll which allowed it to eventually edge out Dirty Job. Of course Dirty Job would have won if I hadn't intervened, but a sequel to that story would have been a miserable experience for all. I'm very excited about writing a sequel to Ascendant but Obsequious, I hope you are too! I'fe had an idea for a continuation ever since wrapping up the original. **

**The results of the top 5:**

**Ascendant but Obsequious: 19 votes**

**Brothers: 16 votes**

**Dirty Job: 15 votes**

**Princess with a Purple Heart: 12 votes**

**Warheads: 12 votes**

**I was as diligent as possible with keeping track of the votes. If I've missed one, I apologize, but I don't think it would have affected the ranking. You should also know that counting the repeat votes did not change the result (if you disagree with me counting them). **

* * *

**Let me know what you thought about the chapter! Sorry about not giving an 01xOFC warning.**


	14. Chapter 14

**It's a short chapter, but it covers a lot of ground (I apologize for the pun). A good moment to point out to you that chapters don't necessarily happen consecutively, but can take place at the same time. So next chapter you'll read what Heero has been up to in the meantime.**

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part XIV – Duo's POV**

He blinked his eyes open and squinted at the bright light. He groaned in pain as his headache was aggravated. His sweaty, bare back was plastered against the leather of the couch and when he rolled onto his side his skin peeled away from the leather uncomfortably. He forced his eyes open. The windows were black, it was dark outside, but someone had turned on all the lights in the living room. He tensed up at the sound of footsteps moving around him. He was in no state to defend himself. The blurry sight of a platinum blonde head of hair put him at ease. "Quatre…"

"He lives."

He cleared his dry throat and tried sitting up without much success, so he let himself fall back down and draped his arm over his eyes to shield them from the light. "How did you even get in here?"

"Oh, Duo. Sometimes I suspect you and the other guys forget that I was a Gundam pilot too. And H didn't recruit me because I'm pretty."

"You are pretty though," Duo retorted with a lopsided grin.

Quatre just hummed.

Duo listened to him clean up some of the mess that he had made. Gathering empty bottles into a trash bag and lumping together the dirty clothes that were strewn around the space. "I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to clean up… You aren't wearing your French maid's uniform."

"Someone has to look after you from time to time," he groused, sounding a little out of breath from the chore. He cleared a spot on the coffee table to sit down and he helped Duo into an upright position before pressing a glass of cold water into his palm and curling his fingers around it. "And take these with it." He dropped two pills into Duo's other hand.

Trusting his blonde friend, Duo swallowed the pills without question and gulped down all of the water. "Thanks," he croaked.

"You stink."

"So I've been told."

"When did you last take a shower?"

He shrugged. He didn't even remember. The days all blurred together.

Quatre sighed and took the glass from him, putting it aside. His expression was one of concern. "You have to stop punishing yourself, Duo."

"Why? Did Heero grow his legs back?"

"Honestly, Heero is doing better than you are right now."

Duo nodded. That made him feel a little better. "How is he?" A couple of weeks ago, the nightly ringing of his phone had stopped.

"He's fine."

"Is he still training with the Runt-Pack?" He inquired. During Quatre's last visit, he had brought him up-to-speed on Heero's recovery. Duo wasn't surprised that he was training to try and pass The Twelve again, although it did break his heart knowing that the old Heero would have no trouble passing those tests with flying colors, whereas now the odds were against him even making it far enough in the training to be allowed to partake in the tests themselves.

"No. He's not on L1 anymore."

"What?" He turned sideways, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch. He stared at his friend with questioning eyes. "What do you mean? Where is he?"

"On Earth."

"_Earth_? Wha- Why-… _Where _on Earth?"

"I don't know," Quatre answered simply, unconcerned. "It seems he went down to Earth only to drop off the face of it." He grinned at his own pun.

"How can you be so relaxed about this?" Duo challenged and he shot up from his seat, regretting it instantly as he went lightheaded. When his vision returned to him, he looked down into aquamarine eyes. "He's all alone!"

"I think that's what he needs right now."

"Aren't you worried?"

"He can take care of himself, Duo. He's even stronger than we've ever known."

Duo paced back and forth, shaking his head. "We have to find him."

"I'm sure we could," Quatre consented. "But I don't believe we should. I don't think he wants to be found."

Duo snorted.

"What would you even do if you tracked him down, Duo? Would you go see him? You've been avoiding him all this time."

Duo's shoulders slumped as all the power left his body at the confrontational question. "I'm no good for him, Quat," he disclosed miserably.

"You're not," the other agreed. "Not as long as you truly believe that. You're in a destructive mode right now, so I agree that you have nothing to offer him at the moment."

"I'm always in a destructive mode," he argued darkly. "It's my default setting. I am the God of Death, after all."

Quatre shook his head. "The most important thing I've learned since the war, is that we were never that powerful. We never had any true power over life, nor death. We just did what we could, whatever was most right at the time; given the circumstances, given the available information. Our success and failures were subject to happenstance. We never decided who lived and who died, greater powers than us did."

"But _I decided_ to let Viver, Grace and Beck come on that mission with us. And it was my decision that killed three people and ruined Heero's life." He dropped back down on the couch in defeat and shied away from Quatre's touch when his friend meant to lay a comforting hand on his knee.

"You made that decision just like we made any decision when we were at war: under duress and without all of the information. Those three put you in an impossible position. There was a risk of those extremists firing those nuclear missiles at any moment; the mission couldn't wait. You and Heero were the best and Viver, Grace and Beck were skilled agents; you couldn't have known about all the things that ended up going wrong." He touched his hand to Duo's unshaven chin to make the man meet his gaze. "The universe decided to let that mission go wrong: to kill those agents and to pin Heero down with no hope for escape. You made the decision to give him a new chance."

Duo swallowed the lump in his throat and confessed pathetically: "He begged me to just let him die there and I ignored him."

Quatre offered him a smile. "And all of us are grateful."

"All except Heero."

"Heero will either prove the whole world wrong and get reinstated as an agent and be able to continue to follow his sense of duty, or he will fail but will eventually find a new purpose for himself. Either way, at some point, Heero will come to value this chance you have given him and he will be grateful too. You didn't ruin his life, you saved it."

"You can't possibly know all this."

"Yes. I can," Quatre asserted and his gaze turned stern. "After Dorothy stabbed me, I've never been the same. They've had to replace so many organs, I'm a lot weaker since then, which is why I didn't join the Preventers, like you guys did."

Duo stared in shock, he had no idea Quatre's injury had been so severe. It appeared the blonde was stronger than he had always given him credit for, being able to hide it as well as he had and suffering without their support.

"I barely made it through the incident with Mariemaia…" He continued with a bitter chuckle. "After everything I've done, I've experienced the same survivor's guilt as the rest of you and the only way to cope with that is to find a way to somehow give back to the world. I wanted to continue 'saving the world', like you and Heero and WuFei – and Trowa, for a while. But I couldn't; my body wasn't up for it. I had to find a different way to feel like I had the right to still be in this world, to feel like I still had something to offer that made my life worthwhile. That's why I stepped into my father's shoes and now I work hard every day to boost the economy of the colonies and give back to the people as much as I can."

Duo listened, completely rendered speechless by Quatre's emotional account: his own experience of the struggle all five of them had gone through.

"I found a different way to make peace with myself and with the world. My body may have been weakened, but _I _was still strong enough to do that. Heero is…" A smile splayed across his lips. "Heero is immeasurably stronger than me. Both physically and mentally. I wouldn't be surprised if he fights his way back into the field, but even if he doesn't, he will find peace of mind some other way. The world is always a better place with him in it – it doesn't matter if a part of him his missing, it's his heart that matters. He will discover this for himself," Quatre concluded poignantly.

"And he will forgive me for cutting off his legs?"

"He's never blamed you, Duo. He knows that it wasn't fair of him to ask you to leave him there."

Duo bowed his head. "Even if that's true, he'll hate me for lying to him and tricking him into letting Viver, Grace and Beck come with us."

Quatre sighed. "I'll admit, he might not forgive you for the betrayal of his trust. But he will know the call you made in that moment isn't a direct cause of him losing his legs. However-" He stopped himself but Duo urged him to speak up, so he did. "I'm not sure if he'll understand why you have been ignoring him all these months."

His face twisted into a pained expression.

Quatre scooted forward and pulled the man into a hug. He muttered into his shoulder: "The most important thing for you to know is that he will be fine. He is fighting and he will be okay. So now you have to start fighting."

Duo shook his head and buried his nose further into the collar of Quatre's shirt. "I'm not strong like him, or like you."

"No, you're not." The blonde detached himself and pulled back to look Duo in his eyes. "I think you're stronger than all of us."

Duo blinked in disbelief.

"I know how much you love him and how hard loving him has been for you, because he hasn't been able to give back what you put in. He's a difficult person to love, but you never gave up on him. You believed in his humanity and in his heart before anyone else did and you've nurtured both at the cost of yourself."

"Quatre…"

"I think you've shown the most impressive strength of all: selflessness. To love and uphold someone without ever knowing if they love you back."

His lower lip trembled and he felt tears streaming down his face.

Quatre tilted his head and smiled at him sweetly. He reached up his hand to wipe at Duo's wet cheeks. "But he does love you back, Duo," he promised reverently. "He does love you back. Whether or not things can be made right between the two of you, you deserve to know he has loved you all along."

A loud sob escaped him and he leaned forward into his friend's embrace again. Quatre soothed him, petting his hair without caring that it was unwashed.

"I'm sorry for what I said before," Quatre continued. "When Tro and I first heard from WuFei about why you let those three agents come along with you."

Duo swallowed. He remembered Quatre showing up at his door, completely distraught. He didn't say much, all he said, with a broken voice, was that he was disappointed in him and then he had walked away. _Disappointed_. The word had struck Duo like lightening.

"I hadn't given myself time to think yet. At the time, I couldn't think. I was feeling so many things. I was sure that if I – or any of us – had been in that position, we would have found a better solution and everything would have been different. But then I remember Heero destroying that shuttle with those pacifist leaders. And WuFei fighting Heero during the Mariemaia incident out of misguided beliefs. Trowa abusing the trust of the people at the circus and staging an attack there. And letting myself get so corrupted by the ZERO system that I nearly killed Trowa." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "We all do the best we can and we all make mistakes in spite of it."

"… Thank you," he whimpered into Quatre's shirt.

Quatre squeezed him tighter still before releasing him and getting up from the table. "I brought you clean clothes," he announced and he walked to a duffel bag by the front door and brought it over to Duo. "Go take a shower and put these on. They're Trowa's, so they'll fit."

He accepted the bag, noting it was mostly empty aside from a change of clothing and a new pair of underwear and socks, still in the packaging. "And then what?"

"Then you are going to pack whatever you need in that bag and you're coming with us." He threw a thumb over his shoulder, at the front of the house. "Trowa is waiting in the car."

He slowly rose to his feet, hugging the bag to his chest. "Where are we going?" He asked meekly.

"To L4. I've arranged a spot for you at the best rehab center on the colonies."

The thought of having to fight his addiction frightened him. He was apprehensive to go with him, to say the least. As hard as living the way he had had been, it still seemed easier than facing his demons while sober.

But Quatre left no room for argument and no time for hesitation. He ushered him upstairs, to the bathroom. When he was all cleaned up and was done packing a few belongings – one of which being a framed photograph of him and Heero in their Preventer uniforms, with Heero looking serious as ever and Duo sporting a crooked grin – Quatre took him by his hand and guided him out the front door. Trowa hugged Duo and took the bag from him to put in the trunk of the car. The three climbed into the vehicle and headed for the spaceport.

Duo craned his neck, watching the house until they rounded the corner and it disappeared from sight.

"Don't worry, Duo. You'll be back home soon enough," Trowa assured him, making eye-contact with him in the rear-view-mirror.

"Will Heero be?" He questioned.

"You'll find out when the time comes," he said simply.

The flight to L4 was short, since they happened to be close together at that point; both circling the Earth at a different altitude and speed. He spent one night at his friends' household, long enough to grow envious of the relationship they had built together. They both appeared so free from and unburdened by their past, even though Duo knew there was still heartache below the surface as was true for all of them. In the morning he was brought to the rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol addiction. It was a sprawling landscape that was reminiscent in style of the Mediterranean area on Earth. After checking in and hugging Quatre goodbye, Duo was taken on a tour of the premises and then escorted to his own room.

He sat on the single bed in the modest room and watched the thin curtain billow in the wind – which was actually just the exhaust from the air-conditioning system on the colony. The landscape outside his window was luscious and well-maintained. If not for the metal paneled hull of the colony, visible in the distance and overhead, the place felt a lot like Earth, in the sense that it felt natural and open. L4 was different in that regard from L1 anyway. L1 was mostly one large metropolis, whereas L4 was less densely populated, making it less crowded and packed.

He wondered where Heero was and what he was doing – and how he was doing. He hadn't stopped thinking about his former partner in all that time. It was torturous, but not even in his drunken stupor could he forget about him, nor did he want to. He cherished his memories with Heero, even though they were mostly mundane and the significance would be lost on any outsider looking in. They never shared any great happiness or romance, but there had been a quiet comfort and trust between them that Duo treasured over anything else. They had something special. He hoped Heero remembered it that way too, because the memories of it were all that was left of it now.

On his first day at the center, he met with his Personal Guidance Counselor, who would help him through his rehabilitation during his stay at the center. The man was kind but spoke with a firm tone as he provided Duo with information on the two-week detoxification regime he would go through and the following treatment program. Core components of the recovery were individual and group therapy, but there were also group activities, stress management classes and relaxation sessions. His PGC would give him weekly personal assignments and he would be in charge of his relapse prevention course.

After a medical examination and a grueling psychological evaluation during which every sensitive nerve was exposed and prodded for a reaction to gain understanding of the root of his triggers up front, Duo was given medication and a diet plan to help with the withdrawal symptoms he would soon experience. For the next two weeks, his schedule would consist mostly of plenty of rest as he went through detox.

At the end of the day, Duo was exhausted and numb. He was back in his room but he couldn't remember how he had ended up back there. He was seated on the edge of the bed again, watching the curtains. They were still now. The window was closed. It was dark outside.

Sweat gathered at his temples and his unsteady fingers already caused the information pamphlet he was holding to tremble in the air. His mouth was dry and it hurt to swallow. His body was already reacting to absence of alcohol intake.

He had gone through withdrawal before, when he had only been a kid, I preparation of his training. Nothing G did to him – no matter how creative the deranged professor would get in his training methods – was worse than what his own body put him through. Two weeks had felt like two months.

Sweating, Shivering. Aching. Vomiting. Convulsing. Hallucinating. Starving.

It happened all over again.

But every time he considered elbowing his way past the counsellor and nurses and leaving the center to go get a drink at the nearest bar to put an end to his misery, he stopped and thought of Heero. None of the pain Duo was going through, compared to what Heero had to suffer. Because of that, he couldn't quit.

When the two weeks of detoxification were over and his body was used to functioning without alcohol in its system again, Duo thought the worst of it had been over, but he was wrong.

The therapy sessions were much more painful as they laid bare every old hurt he had ever suffered and he had to come clean about every mistake he had ever made. There were many. Things he thought he had successfully left in the past, hadn't been in the past at all. Everything was addressed and dealt with. There was no forgiveness to be earned; he had to make peace without forgiveness – acceptance without amends, because there was no opportunity to apologize for his wrongdoings.

They worked their way through his past until they reached the present and that was when Heero's name was first mentioned again, since his intake evaluation weeks earlier. It took many sessions for him to be able to speak of his relationship with the man and how everything fell apart because of that mission, without getting nauseous.

Quatre visited twice every week and talked to him about mundane and insignificant things that were a blessed relief from all the big thoughts and feelings that swarmed him. He enjoyed listening to his friend rambling on about things that didn't matter as it brought a levity to his life that it had been lacking. Trowa tagged along once in a while and would never say much, but the parting hug he would give Duo meant a lot to him.

Their visits were a welcome break from the daily therapy sessions.

"What is the first thing you would say to Heero, if you were to see him again?" His therapist asked, during their latest session.

"I would tell him I love him."

"You wouldn't apologize first?"

"No. Because apologizing to him would be for me," he answered. "… 'Sorry' won't help him. But knowing that I still love him – that I've never thought less of him and that I didn't avoid him because I stopped caring – that might help him. That might mean something to him."

She smiled. "Do you think he still loves you?"

He thought for a moment and said wryly: "Yes, I think he does. But not because he should. Not because I deserve it. But because he's-…" He stopped as his voice cracked with emotion. He made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to say any more, but the therapist gently urged him on. "Because he's the most impressive, most loyal person there is. Once he lets you in, he doesn't even know how to get you back out." He chuckled breathlessly. "I don't think that means he'll still want to be with me though. I don't even think he wants to see me at all. He disappeared and doesn't want to be found."

"But what would you do if you did find him and he told you he doesn't want to see you again?"

"Cry. If I'm not already crying at that point anyway," he tried to joke.

She wouldn't let him get away the deflection and waited for him to elaborate.

It took him several moments to figure out what to say. He decided to give the honest answer, although he was convinced it was not the right answer. "It would wreck me… I can't lie and tell you what you want to hear: that I'd be resilient and be at peace with it."

"What makes you think that is what I want to hear?"

"That's the point of all of this, right? To be strong and get me to rise above?"

She let him stew for a minute before clarifying: "Our sessions are not about getting you to rise above your feelings. They are about getting you to face your feelings and cope with them without alcohol."

He fidgeted with a loose thread on the hem of his sweater.

"I think it's perfectly understandable that you would be 'wrecked'. You don't have to pretend that such a rejection wouldn't affect you. Strength doesn't mean being impervious to hurt; it means dealing with what hurts."

"But I don't know how I would deal with it," he admitted miserably.

"No one does. You can't prepare for something like that. You can't stipulate a battle-plan," she said with a little smile, "You figure these things out on the fly. You will find a solution as long as you trust that you have the right tools and the right skills."

"That sounds very scary."

"Yes, it does," she agreed.

"That sounds like war – like missions. Not knowing what kind of shit-storm you're going to end up in."

"Exactly. But you make it out anyway. You've been solving problems your entire life, Duo."

He leaned back in his chair and redirected his gaze out the window, taking a moment to sort through his thoughts.

"Do you think you've ever solved any of your problems with alcohol?"

"No," he said with a self-deprecating snort.

"Do you think you'll want to drink again if Heero rejects you?"

The answer was simple: "Yes. I will want to." He looked back at her and added solemnly: "But I won't."

She smiled and nodded. "_That_ was the answer I wanted to hear." She closed her notebook, as if they were done, but she continued with one more question. "Why?"

"Why wouldn't I?" He verified.

"Yes."

He thought for a moment. It wasn't about a matter of punishing himself or not – it wasn't even about himself. "Because he told me to leave him there, on that satellite, because he wanted to save me. He told me to leave because he didn't want me to die trying to get him out. We've never had much regard for our own lives, but we value each other's lives. He thinks I deserve a life the way I think he does. Whether that's together or not, neither of us should waste it."

He was dismissed for the day and the next week he was discharged.

At Quatre's insistence, he stayed on L4 for a few more weeks, to get accustomed to life outside of the rehab center. It was a good call. It gave him time to slowly expose himself to temptations when he was ready, as well as gradually get back into the routine of taking care of himself. At the rehab center, everything was taken care of for him: his breakfast was ready first thing in the morning, he was provided with snacks throughout the day, reminded to drink plenty of water, lunch was served at noon precisely, his PGC managed his schedule, dinner was ready at seven and when he returned to his room at night his bed had been made and his laundry was done. Living with Quatre and Trowa allowed him time to ease back into independency.

Not until his friends agreed he was ready did they drop him off at the spaceport and let him fly back to L1.

He arrived back home and climbed out of the cab. He stood on the sidewalk with his single bag slung over his shoulder and he looked up at the four story house. In a dream, Heero had been there when he returned. It was only a dream. He adjusted the strap of the bag on his shoulder and headed inside.

Quatre had arranged for a cleaning crew to get the house tidied up again and keep it well-maintained during Duo's absence. The house smelled fresh and there wasn't a single speck of dust to be discerned on any surface. He looked at the couch, where he had spent so much of his time and made a note to have it replaced as soon as possible. Just the mere idea of the leather against his skin made him feel ill.

He carried his bag upstairs; his feet getting heavier with every step closer to the bedroom.

The bed was made with new, white sheets and it looked so terribly big and empty.

He went out for groceries, avoiding the aisle with alcohol and spirits, and cooked himself dinner at home. He resisted the urge to turn on the television and endured the silence instead. He realized the absence of murmurs in the background actually reminded him pleasantly of Heero. Heero was always a quiet presence at his side. His tacit aura filled the space. Duo could almost feel him sitting in the chair next to him.

At night he laid down in the bed, on the side that used to be his – even though there were no "sides" to it anymore, other than left or right. There was no _his side_, without there being _Heero's side_. He wept but managed to get some sleep anyway.

In the morning, when he was only halfway through his breakfast of cereal with milk and a side of fresh fruit – as opposed to a stale beer – he was surprised by a knock on the front door. He looked down at himself sheepishly. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and the T-shirt he slept in. When he had been drunk, his attire didn't bother him much, but he felt self-conscious now. He went to the front door and opened it slightly, hiding himself behind the door as much as possible until his recognized his visitor.

"Sally."

The kind-faced woman smiled at him and when he opened the door further for her, she enveloped him in a tight hug.

"What brings you up to L1?" He questioned as he invited her in with a welcoming gesture of his arm.

"WuFei," she replied simply.

"Oh, really? Is that, uh-… Are you guys-…?" He couldn't find the right words. He didn't want to be indelicate. The two of them had been through a pretty bad break-up, which Duo happened to be a reluctant witness to seeing as it was during his two-week stay at the Academy last year. He had seen her at one of her worst moments, just like she had seen him at his worst moment – keeping vigil at Heero's bedside during his coma – and as a result, they had become oddly close, even without having seen much of each other lately, or at all, rather. There was a connection between them. They felt comfortable around each other, probably also because their personalities were a good match.

"We're working on it," she said with a hopeful smile. "It's better now that we aren't _working together_ anymore. We're having some long-distance fun, at the moment."

He chuckled at her sassy wink.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I interrupted your breakfast," she exclaimed when she spotted the bowls and cup of coffee on the breakfast bar.

"It's fine. In fact: do you want some?"

"A cup of coffee would be nice." She followed him into the kitchen and while staring at the fresh fruit, she added: "And if you happen to have more of those strawberries…"

"Sure thing." He made her coffee and washed and prepared the rest of the strawberries for her. They seated themselves side by side at the breakfast bar.

"Mmm, these are great," she said after popping the first of the fruits in her mouth.

"Can't imagine them being better than what you get on Earth." They didn't grow them on L1, L1 was too overpopulated to have room left for agriculture. Most fruits and vegetables were grown on L3 and L5, or on one of the farming satellites. Stuff from Earth was way too expensive.

"These are a little less sweet, but I actually like them that way."

He nodded and sipped his coffee. "How are things at the Academy?" Aside from her medical research, Sally also taught field-medicine classes to the new recruits.

"Great," she replied with a mouthful. Once she had swallowed, she added offhandedly: "Heero is there."

Duo sat up straight in his seat and stared at her wide-eyed. "What?"

"Hmhm."

"… I knew he was on Earth but-… He's at the _Academy_?"

Sally's eyes sparkled with mirth at his dumbfounded reaction. "Sure is."

"Why? What is he doing there?"

"Training for The Twelve."

Duo didn't know how to process it. He thought Heero had left L1 to pursue a different direction in his life – like Quatre had mentioned: finding a new purpose. "But he could have done that here," he countered.

"He could have. But he needed a change of scenery. A fresh start." She casually continued to eat her strawberries.

Duo let out a sigh and then sat in silence for a few minutes as he came to terms with the news. "How is he doing?"

"… Better," she answered after a thoughtful pause.

That vague answer didn't make him feel any better.

"You should come down sometime, when you're ready, and ask him yourself," Sally suggested.

The former pilot shook his head. "I'm sure he doesn't want that. He went to Earth to get away and erased his tracks so he couldn't be traced. He doesn't want me to come find him."

The woman smirked, knowing something he didn't. "He wants you to find him, Duo."

"If he wanted to be found, why drop his identity and make it hard to be found?" He challenged.

"Because he doesn't want just anybody to find him. He wants _you_ to find him."

He frowned at her. "What makes you so sure?"


	15. Chapter 15

**This chapter felt way longer than 7.000 words. It was a chore getting it out, partly because the last scene of the chapter has been in my head for years now and realizing I couldn't really do the vision justice was very frustration. But I reminded myself: this is supposed to be just for fun. So I decided to treat myself by not proofreading. Sorry! **

**I hope you'll have fun reading it. Please let me know what you think. I've caught up to where I left off writing this story two years ago, so I could use some enthusiasm to keep me going. **

* * *

**GROUNDED**

**Part XV – Heero's POV**

"_Hiroka Maxwell_," the instructor barked, reading the name off the clipboard in his hands and then pinpointing the new recruit in the line-up.

Heero saluted and announced: "Present."

The instructor continued to call out names, a total of nineteen. They were class 4B and it was their first day of training for the Preventer Qualifying test, consisting of twelve disciplines – colloquially referred to as The Twelve. All the recruits had previously passed their other courses at the Academy, after four years of studying and now only The Twelve stood between them and becoming Preventer field agents.

The tall, broad man, with shaved head, wearing a black military uniform walked back and forth along the line-up. "I see a lot of new faces," he said, in that exaggerated, commanding tone of voice of his, "but also some familiar mugs. Some of which I'd rather not see at all. But that's life, isn't it? You don't always get what you want. Let's meet our repeaters." He held up his list of names and started: "Jacob Tempe."

"Yes, Sir."

"How many times did you already fail The Twelve?"

"Twice, Sir," he answered curtly.

The instructor went through eight more names, concluding with: "Mister Niko Kaleida!" With a devilish smirk he came to stand in front of the young man standing to Heero's right.

Niko Kaleida was short and slight. He had black hair and a face that sported freckles and an uncertain, intimidated expression. He couldn't meet the instructors gaze as he responded: "Yes, Sir?"

"Oh, little Niko…" the instructor sighed condescendingly. "Please tell the group how many times you've taken The Twelve."

Niko shifted self-consciously. His voice was weak as he replied: "F-Five times, Sir."

The instructor leaned in and cupped his hand around his ear. "I'm sorry, what? Speak up please, for the cheap seats in the back."

"Five times, Sir!"

"You've taken The Twelve five times," he repeated. "And how many times did you fail?"

Heero tightened his mouth. The answer was obvious. The instructor was just bullying the young recruit.

"Five times, Sir!"

"Yes," the man nodded. "You've tried and failed _five_ times. The official record is seven. Is that your ambition, Mister Kaleida? To fail seven times- or rather: eight, I suppose, if you want to beat the record."

"No, Sir."

The instructor sighed. "Why won't you just give up, Kaleida?"

The recruit took a deep breath and said poignantly: "I'm not a quitter, Sir."

"No, you're not," the instructor readily agreed. "You're just a loser."

Some of the others chuckled at the biting remark and Niko bowed his head at the humiliation.

Heero clenched his jaw shut to refrain himself from speaking up. He had no authority here. At the Academy, he was just another recruit. Nobody knew who he was, nor what happened to him to drive him here. He just wanted to fly under the radar and train so he could pass the testing and assert his rightful place in the Agency again.

"Now, newbies, make no mistake. Many of you will end up as repeaters as well," the instructor bellowed, moving along the line with his hands folded behind his back. "Some of you might even retake and fail the test as often as mister Kaleida, but most will drop out long before then. In the end, only ten percent of you pussies will pass The Twelve and be initiated as field agents. The rest of you will get assigned your own little cubicle, or you can refuse the offer of a desk-job within the Agency and then you've just wasted the past four years of your life, and you'll be flipping burgers to try to pay off your student debt. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir!" The class replied in unison.

They were told to grab the equipment that was laid out on the ground and carry it to the track where they would start their training with a run. The instructor walked ahead, his back and shoulders stiff, his strides large. The rest followed and already cliques were forming within the group as people naturally gravitated towards each other and started up subdued conversations about their hellish instructor. Heero kept to himself. He had no interest in making friends; friends had the tendency to pry and the whole point of him coming to the Academy to train, as opposed to staying on Earth, was so he could keep the state of his body a secret. He didn't want any special treatment – he had never found it helpful, in any point of his life.

He followed the group, carrying pads they would use for combat training later on in the day.

By the third lap around the track, he was trailing behind. Everyone was running in step with the instructor, who gradually increased the speed after each go-round and Heero could no longer keep up. The legs were pulling on his thighs and hips. The pain in his toe had him stumbling a few times, further adding to the distance between himself and the rest of the recruits. But he wasn't alone.

Running two steps behind him was Niko Kaleida. Heero could hear the young man's heaving breaths, even over his own harsh panting. He shot a look over his shoulder at the twenty-something-year-old man – who looked like a boy to Heero, even though he had only just turned twenty-three himself. His face was read and sweat plastered his black hair to his forehead. His gaze was focused on the ground, but he didn't seem entirely present. His eyes were distant and clouded.

Heero looked back up ahead, at the rest of the group that was far away from them. Niko was definitely going to pass out and Heero didn't want to have to deal with it, but the others were too far away to notice the state the black-haired boy was in.

Before long, Heero heard a thud and a grunt behind him and when he looked over his shoulder he spotted the slight body laying sprawled on the ground. Grumbling under his breath he slowed to a halt and he clutched his sides as if that would alleviate the stinging pain. He walked back over to the fallen recruit and crouched down next to him to roll him over and check his pulse.

In the distance, the instructor blew his whistle, drawing Heero's attention. The group was on the far end, opposite the grass field in the middle of the oval track and from there the instructor had finally noticed that two of the recruits hadn't been able to keep up. He had the group continue their run and then the big man came jogging across the field, just as Niko was starting to come to.

The boy slowly sat up with a confused look in his eyes. His expression turned frightened when the instructor kneeled down and checked him over.

Once he confirmed the recruit was fine, he said: "Well, that's a new low, Kaleida. Fainting, really?" He rose to his feet and put his hands on his hips.

Heero decided to help Niko up from the ground, but he didn't like how the boy kept holding onto him for balance once they were standing up. He tried leaning away, but Niko kept his arm around Heero's shoulders.

"And what's your excuse?" The instructor demanded, looking at the Japanese man. "Why were you straggling?"

"Just tired, Sir."

"Great. So I have two duds in the class. Well, I guess it's better that way. You two can babysit each other."

The rest of the group came jagging past them, some studying the scene quizzically, others grinning.

"We will finish our laps, you two girls can set up the pylons on the field. We'll be running agility drills after this. The schematic for the pylons is on the sheet on my clipboard," the instructor pointed at the pile of equipment they had gathered. "I trust that isn't too much of a challenge for you two to manage?"

"No, Sir," they both replied. Niko's voice was weak, Heero had trouble hiding his indignation.

"Good." The instructor caught up with the group and reassuming his position at the head of the pack and increased their pace again.

Heero shook Niko's arm off his shoulder and started for the center of the field.

"Thanks for looking out for me," Niko said, falling in step behind him.

"Whatever."

"I don't want you to think I'm weak or anything. I have Andrew-Lichs," he disclosed offhandedly. "The medication helps, but I get tired more easily, you know? I can't really train for too long, so I can't build my muscle strength."

Heero stopped and turned around to look at him. His intimidating stare made Niko freeze up. Andrew-Lichs was a pretty serious subtype of muscular dystrophy, Heero knew. Up until fifty years ago it used to be a fatal condition: individuals died of heart failure in early childhood. Medical breakthroughs allowed sufferers not only to survive, but keep most of the symptoms under control, however, the illness was still marked by overall physical weakness, especially in the upper arms and lower legs. The Preventer Agency maintained no rules that prohibited anyone with a physical or mental disability to enroll in the Academy and apply for the status of field agent; as long as the individual was able to pass The Twelve, they were allowed to become Preventer agents. In most cases, however, people with medical conditions did not make the cut because the tests were too challenging.

Heero was about to advise Niko to give up on his pursuit of becoming a field agents, just like the instructor had, since the odds were so overwhelmingly stacked in his favor. But then he remembered his own physical condition and everyone telling him that he'd be better of resigning to his fate and accepting his limitations. He kept his mouth shut and spun back around, continuing on his path towards the equipment.

"Huh…" Niko scrambled after him and came to walk alongside him. "You're the first person not to tell me to quit after I told them I'm sick," he stated.

"Hn." Heero bent over to reach for the instructor's clipboard and leafed to the page with the schematic to set up the pylons for the agility drills.

"… Why?"

Heero didn't answer. He grabbed the closest stack of bright orange pylons and went to set them up. Niko followed behind closely and when Heero stopped dead in his tracks, the boy bumped into him and laughed sheepishly when he came to face him.

"Sorry." He scratched the back of his neck. "Seriously though… Why? Maybe you don't know what Andrew-Lichs is?"

"I know what it is," he huffed indignantly.

"Okay." Niko quirked an eyebrow at him.

Heero sighed irritably and threw his gaze up at the gray sky. "Do you believe you can do this?"

"Yes," the boy said with a determined nod.

"Then no one has the right to tell you you can't," he declared and then side-stepped around him and proceeded with placing the pylons in the short grass according to the schematic.

Niko seemed baffled by the matter-of-fact statement and it took him a moment before he thought to help out, grabbing a stack of pylons himself. "You're a very intimidating guy, you know that, Hiroka?"

He responded dryly: "So I've been told."

"But you're actually pretty nice, aren't you?"

Heero straightened up and fixed his gaze on the other.

Niko held his stare and squirmed for a moment, but then, all of a sudden, he gave a toothy smile. "Yeah, I knew it." And then he wordlessly continued with his chore.

During the agility drills, Niko fared better than he did on the track, but Heero's struggle continued. The quick side-stepping movements had him tripping over his own feet. Several times he couldn't regain his balance and he dropped into the grass with a grunt. It was jarring for him to be pegged as the runt of the litter, when he was used to nothing short of superiority and excellence of himself. The instructor allowed the other recruits to make of him as he must have seemed very clumsy to them. While it was hard on his ego, he preferred it to being babied, the way he was treated on L1. So his suffered their insults in silent and just picked himself back up every time, dusted the wet grass off his palms with his shirt and continued on.

They wrapped up the day with some kickboxing exercises and sparring sessions. Heero's balance was still an issue, so when it was his turn to kick the pad held up by the instructor, he either fell again, missed the target or had his kick land only weakly. More mockery ensued.

"I'd say you kick like a girl, Maxwell," the instructor called as Heero moved to the back of the line again, "but that would be an insult to the ladies we have with us in this class."

The four women turned and grinned at him cockily.

Niko was in front of him and the shorter boy turned around and said: "Don't worry, it's only your first day."

With a grimace Heero ignored the boy's attempt at encouragement.

When it was time to spar, everyone was paired off and they would rotate partners. Heero and Niko got paired together first. Everyone donned the fingerless gloves and them combatted their opponents. Heero studied their amateurish moves before Niko demanded his attention.

The freckle-faced recruit awkwardly held his fists in front of his face, blocking most of his vision. He stood bent at the knee, which was proper, but he shifted his weight between his feet too much and every time he did Heero could discern a point where he could easily throw him off balance. Niko inched closer to him, apprehensive about attacking him even though, as far as this frail boy was concerned, Heero was the weakest link in the group.

The former Gundam pilot cocked his head at the other's hesitant approach. When he threw the first punch, Heero caught his fist and with a swipe of his foot he had Niko falling backwards on his ass.

Wide, dark eyes blinked up at him.

"Up. Again," Heero groused.

He scrambled up on his feet and tried the exact same attack. That time, Heero grabbed the hand and with a twist of his wrist he had the boy spun around, with his hand pinned behind his back. A nudge against the back of his knees was all it took to have the boy sagging to the ground again. He took care to never really hurt him, since there was no need.

Niko got up again and looked at him with a comically exaggerated frown. He brought up his hands again in a defensive position.

"Not that high," Heero corrected. "You still want to actually be able to see your opponent."

He lowered his fists as instructed.

"Go ahead." He motioned for him to try again.

Niko attempted the exact same, right handed blow and his eyes went wide as he was stopped just as easily and forced back down to the ground in submittal. "Lowering my fists didn't help at all," he whined as he got back up.

"Yes it did, this time you could _see _me owning you. That's the first step."

"How come you're so good at this? Did you take the Advanced hand-to-hand combat classes at the Academy?"

"… Sure."

Niko quirked an eyebrow.

"… Grew up in a tough neighborhood too."

Niko snorted. "Alright. Can you teach me how to get better?"

Heero eyed the instructor, who wasn't paying the two of them any attention, but focusing on the other students instead. "That's not my job."

"Please?"

He signed and consented: "I'll try."

"Time's up!" The instructor bellows. "Switch partners." He called out names as he made new pairings. "Maxwell, you're with Sloan."

A golden-haired man with a superhero jaw smirked at Heero and walked up to him with a cocky swagger to his step. Niko skittered off to face someone else.

Even with his new, longer legs, Sloan still towered over Heero. He was much broader too, but Heero wasn't intimidated.

Sloan tried jabbing at him with the heel of his palm, but Heero twisted his upper body to avoid the blow and smacked his hand up against the underside of the outstretched forearm. The sting had Sloan pulling his hand back, as expected. A smarter fighter wouldn't have pulled his hand back after getting it into someone's personal space before landing a blow. If he had thought to swipe his arm to the left, he would have clocked Heero against the side of his head.

Sloan grinned. "Alright, so you got some spunk in you."

Heero refused to engage him verbally and instead just waited. He knew better than to assume an offensive strategy. He rather held his position and stayed with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He didn't want to give the big bully the chance to abuse his balance issues. He was thrown another punch and he caught the fist and held it long enough to leave his left side defenseless while Heero reached out, grabbed a handful of flesh at his side and rolled his fingers into his palm, squeezing the flesh like a vice.

It was only a brief grab before he let go of the bigger recruit, but it had the blonde doubling over in pain as it aggravated a pressure point in his side. Sloan got angry and that only made it easier for Heero to deflect his punches as he became more imprecise and acting on instinct made him predictable.

Heero became aware that Sloan's frustrated grunting and yelling had earned them an audience. Everyone was gathered around them in a circle and giggling at Sloan's failed attempts to land even one blow. Meanwhile, Heero was making the other cry out in pain with minimal effort; pinching and hitting pressure points in his elbow and under his jaw and jabbing once at his sternum which left the blonde gasping for air.

"Looks like you aren't useless after all, Maxwell," the instructor commanded.

In a last ditch attempt to win back his dignity, Sloan kicked his foot against Heero's shin. Whereas Heero felt nothing, Sloan fell to the ground, clutching his foot.

"You imbecile." The instructor stepped in and helped him back on his feet. "You don't kick with your tippy-toes, you kick with the side or the top of your foot." He waved two others over and they each supported one side of Sloan and helped him limp to the infirmary to make sure he didn't break his toe. Which he probably had, since he had kicked his toes against a carbon fiber and titanium leg.

The instructor shot a confused look Heero's way and then announced: "Class dismissed. Clean up this mess and go hit the showers. I'll see you back here tomorrow, kiddies."

The crowd dispersed and everyone grabbed as much as they could carry and walked it back over to the buildings on the far end of the training field.

Niko came to walk beside Heero. "That was awesome," he exclaimed.

"Hn."

"Can you teach me to be just as good as you?"

"No." Definitely not.

"Well, I guess I'll take what I can get… Do you wanna go out for a bite? Or a drink?"

"No."

"What about coffee?" He tried excitedly.

"Coffee is 'a drink'," Heero deadpanned.

Niko's pace slowed. "… God, you're cool," he breathed in awe.

Every day was more or less the same as that first day. Heero struggled to complete exercises he used to consider unchallenging. Niko hung around him like an excitable puppy. And the instructor and everyone else gave them both grief about their performance falling short of the norm.

In the evenings, Heero trained on the obstacle course by himself, until Niko figured out what he was doing and started joining him. There was just no getting rid of the kid and Heero couldn't stand being witness to his silly mistakes, so he gave him pointers to improve his performance in all disciplines of The Twelve. Niko wasn't very strong, but with the right techniques he wouldn't need to be to pass most of the disciplines. On the obstacle course, the black-haired recruit faced the same struggles as Heero did. Neither of them could get over the vertical wall and it took them both forever to climb up the net.

After some time, running became easier for him. His strength increased and he had gotten used to the new weight and feel of his legs. He found his stride and he was able to keep up with the rest of the group, even if he was trailing at the back, right next to Niko.

On the obstacle course, however, even after months of training, he still experienced little progress. It was like there was a delay between the command of his brain and the reaction of his feet. He miss-stepped and slipped constantly and his movements were hopelessly uncoordinated during the hundred meter tiger crawl through the mud, under a web of barbed wire.

Even though Niko had gotten much better and only the wall still stopped him from being able to complete the course, the young recruit never left Heero's side, slowing his pace so they could tackle each obstacle together. The wall they were both allowed to circumvent, for the time being.

They both reached the end, their finish time several minutes behind the rest of the group.

Heero sat down in the mud and dug the heel of his palm into the top of his shoe, trying to get his toe to stop hurting. The stinging pain shot up his entire leg and he had felt himself cramping up with each step, only making his movements that much more imprecise.

"Are you okay?" Niko asked. "Did you bang your foot into something?"

"It's fine," he huffed. He appreciated Niko's concerned. The boy was grateful for the way Heero had helped him improve and was just trying to repay him with kindness, but he didn't want the kid to start butting into his business and grow to pity him the way everyone on L1 did.

"Maxwell," the instructor barked, stalking over to him, "are you injured?"

"No, Sir."

"Then get up. We're going to run through the course one more time. Come on."

He heaved a sigh and pushed himself up from the ground. They walked back to the start. The heavy rain was beating down on their shoulders. The wood of all the obstacles was slippery, making each run-through even more exhausting.

"You shouldn't wait for me," Heero told Niko. "You need to work on your time."

"Why? I'm never going to be able to make it over that wall anyway…" he replied morosely.

The recruits were allowed to help each other get over certain obstacles, even during the official testing. The Twelve are designed to simulate conditions in the field and since agents never go out into the field alone, they are allowed to help each other. Heero wanted to be able to do it by himself, like he always had, but he had accept that, for the first time, he had to rely on someone else to complete the course. It's going to cost them a ten second penalty though, and, at the moment, they are already coming it at half a minute longer than the allotted time on the course.

"When the time comes, we can help each other get over the wall," he said. No one else was going to help them. "I'll give you a boost and then you pull me up. But for now, we both need to work on improving our individual time. As it is, we wouldn't reach the finish in time anyway – wall or no wall."

Niko smiled, excited by the prospect of their teamwork.

They made it back to the starting line and when the instructor shouted "Go" everyone sprinted towards the first obstacle. Heero grunted as Sloan, the big blonde, elbowed him out of his way, already causing him to fall behind on the rest.

The first obstacle was a foursome of logs at different heights that they have to jump over. Heero timed his footsteps perfectly to help him hop over relatively easily. His body connected with one of the higher horizontal logs more forcefully than he was used to in his prime and it knocked the wind out of him, but he rolled off on the other side and continued on. Niko was behind him at that point, because the recruit didn't time his steps and ended up having to shorten his step on his approach, hampering his forward momentum as he half-jumps and half-climbs over the logs.

Next was the log climb; a diagonal rack of timbers. He scrambled up to the top and jumped back down to the bottom easily, as the obstacle didn't require much finesse from his lower body. On the landing, his big toe protested and he limped his first few steps before getting his stride back.

After the tunnel crawl, the stutter-step tires, the monkey bars, the rope wall, the side-way wall traverse, the cargo-net climb and the rope swing, where he had to stick the landing on one end of a fifteen foot balance beam and then make his way to the other end, he was only halfway down the course and had been left behind by everyone else, including Niko. However, as he came up on the vertical wall, he spotted the black-haired recruit waiting for him.

Heero growled under his breath. "I told you to just go around and work on your time."

"No, we're helping each other," the younger one decided and he gets in position to give Heero a boost, but Heero couldn't risk him noticing anything about his legs, so he ordered them to switch position.

Heero leaned his back against the wall and sunk through his knees. He cradled his palms in front of him, lacing the fingers together, creating a step-up for the other. Niko backed up to give himself room for a running start and Heero reminded him to calculate his steps beforehand, so he won't have to shorten his last few steps on the approach. Niko heeded the advice and came sprinting towards him. He planted the ball of his foot in Heero's palms and Heero raised himself up to push the other recruit as high as possible. Niko managed to grab the top ledge of the panel wall and hoisted himself up. Once he was straddling the top, he secured himself and dangled one arm down, with his fingers outstretched. Heero jumped up to grab him with his right hand and he was pulled up until he could clasp the fingers of his left hand over the top. As he pulled himself up, he kicked his feet looking for purchase on the side of the wall and he winced as it further aggravated the pain in his toe.

When he jumped down to the other side, his knees collapsed under him at the sharp pain that passed through him like lightning and had his muscles cramping up.

Niko grabbed him and helped him up to his feet, ignoring the Japanese man's protests. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he grunted and he swatted the boy's hands away. He gritted his teeth and pushed on, trying not to let the knowledge that getting over the wall cost them too much time, in addition to the ten second penalty, discourage him.

There were more balance obstacles up ahead and those had been one of many struggles for him. First, he had to jump from one log stump to another. It was easy enough for him to find the best route in the maze of stumps, but he had to take too long readying himself before each jump if he didn't want to miss and slip off, because that would be a nasty fall. After inching his way over the moving balancing logs, suspended by ropes over a deep, muddy trench, he reached the tiger crawl, where Niko was already halfway. Balance was one of the few things the kid was actually a natural at.

Heero dropped down into the mud and crawled underneath the web of barbed wire. He noticed the instructor circling back to come keep an eye on him and he knew it meant the rest of the class had already reached the finish line.

His entire body ached and the longer he went on, the more his muscles protested and it was becoming more difficult to move. The end of the obstacle seemed miles away and he felt like he was sinking into the mud, rather than fighting through it. He was barely making any progress.

"Come on, Maxwell!" The instructor shouted with an impatient drawl. "I want to be home before dinner, if it's not too much of an inconvenience for you! What are you doing over there? Making mud-angels?"

He clenched his jaw shut and soldiered on. Pained groans and cries escaped him as his entire body was commanding him to stop and he kept ignoring it.

Finally, he reached the end and he scrambled up to his feet, only he straightened up too quickly and he caught his trousers on the last string of barbed wire. He kicked himself free and glared indignantly at the rip over his calf for only a split second before forcing himself through the final handful of obstacles, with barely any energy left.

At the end of the course, he crumbled down to the ground and clutched at his right boot again, willing the pain to stop with every fiber of his being.

"Congratulations, Maxwell," the instructor said snidely and with a beep he stopped his stopwatch. "Eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. That is a new record."

The whole class snickered, except Niko, of course.

"Hit the showers, 4B. Let's go home."

Heero didn't get up to follow the group and remained seated on the ground to catch his breath and scrape together some dignity.

Niko lingered. "Did you cut yourself?"

Heero frowned. "No, it's just… my toe."

"No, I mean-…" Rather than finish his sentence, Niko pointed at the rip in Heero's trousers. "Looks like you cut yourself on the barbed fire."

"It's fine, it's just the pants."

"Oh, okay. You got lucky then. That wire is an infection waiting to happen." He tilted his head and offered a smile as he tried to make light of the situation and distract Heero from his embarrassing failure.

He didn't know how he was ever supposed to get used to this. To get used to being a failure. To get used to being lesser than. Lesser than everyone around him. Lesser than himself – his old self, at least. Things were supposed to be getting better and they were getting better, but still every day was a disappointment. Every day it became more glaring that he might not be able to prove Sally, WuFei and everyone else wrong.

Maybe he can't do this anymore.

But what is he, if not the perfect soldier?

He thought of Duo again. Why does every train of thought circle back to Duo? He understood his mind about as well as his own, new body. He missed everything being easy.

He thought of Duo and what he would think of him. It shamed him.

At the end of the day, he was exhausted. He went home even though Niko asked him to continue training with him.

Niko was a lot like Heero. Like the new Heero, that is. Of the Twelve disciplines he was only failing at the physical ones; he excelled at everything else. It would have been impressive if not for the morose realization that it wouldn't be enough. His tactical knowledge and weaponry skills would not make him a Preventer agent. If he failed the PIE's there was no future in the field for him. The same went for Heero. The only place the agency would have for them, is in a basement somewhere, behind a bank of computer monitors. Heero always believed he had more to offer than that. A better way to repent for all his past wrongs.

After a shower he slumped into his wheelchair, giving into the soreness of his thighs and still seeking relief from the pain in his toe. He rolled through the living room, past the kitchen. He couldn't force himself to eat right now. There were many things he needed, but not food. The thought alone made him nauseous.

He rolled to the window, parking himself between the window and the end table where the phone was docked.

It wasn't that late yet, but nowadays the urge to call home came at all times of the day, not just in the dead of night. He tucked the phone between his cheek and shoulder as it started to ring and he aimed his tired gaze outside. There wasn't much to see other than the brick walls and blinded windows of the building across the alley. The smell of car exhausts was stronger today; the wind must be coming from the direction of the highway, blowing the smog into town. In spite of this, there was something about Earth that put him at ease now. In the way that it was unpredictable and imperfect.

His feet were propped up on the window sill. He was wearing nothing but his boxers and his tank top. He rarely wore anything else at the apartment. Here, he didn't have to worry about people noticing how odd his toes looked, and how there were horizontal seams running across both thighs.

He inspected the length of his leg and a small, irritated frown appeared.

There was a cut in the synthetic skin, on his left leg. The barbed wire had gotten more than just his trousers apparently. It was barely visible – nothing but an inch long slit – but once he noticed it, he couldn't unsee it. It irked him. He felt it itch, being very much aware of how crazy that way.

The phone continued to ring, unanswered.

He reached a hand down and dug the nail of his thumb into the slit and flicked the edge. He caught a glimpse of shimmering black underneath. The skin snapped back into place.

He flicked it again and again, thoughtlessly, with each ring of the phone. It worsened the itch he felt but even that could not distract him from the throb he felt in his big toe after the long day.

Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick.

The call was aborted. A long tone sounded, before the device went silent. He put it away without looking, keeping his focus on his leg.

Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick.

He froze when the clean cut from the barbed wire tore open a little further. One end was jagged now, curving away from the straight line of the cut. After a lengthy pause, his fingers ran along the cut, which had now formed into a sloped shape of a triangle. He picked at the corner, opening the flip, revealing more of the glossy black with a spider web of silver. Carbon fiber reinforced with titanium, he knew.

The skin slipped out from under his nail and the wound snapped shut again.

He straightened up in the chair. Putting his feet down in the footrests and purposefully folding his hands into his lap, knowing he shouldn't make the tear any worse. He should call Sally and have her arrange an appointment at the medical facility at the Academy, to have the cut fixed.

But now the itch and the pain in his toe were insufferable. He couldn't distract himself. He couldn't think about all the things he should do. His very conscious was pulled towards it, until the itch and the pain was all that there was.

It frustrated him. These were not his real legs. His legs were better. His legs worked the way he needed them to. His legs didn't cause him grief. His legs he could rely on. His legs were strong. These were not his legs. These legs did not even have sensation, so it wasn't fair that he should experience pain. He shouldn't have to suffer this pain and this itch!

These were not his legs!

This was not his body!

This was not his mind!

Everything was betraying him. Disappointing him.

What would Duo think seeing him like this? Seeing how pathetic he had become?

In anger, Heero put his left foot on the sill again and grabbed the piece of skin and pulled at it. With a fling of his arm he ripped a strip of skin off, exposing a streak of black and subtle glints of silver down the side of his leg. The piece tore off and he tossed it to the side.

Not feeling any relief from his frustrating yet, he continued to claw at the synthetic skin. With the fingers of both hands he reached into the big, black scar. The loose skin was easy to grab and another chunk was torn off his leg, exposing more of his shin. The skin on the foot came off like a sock. He hooked a finger into the skin covering the knee and pulled up, splitting it in a straight line up his thigh, to where it overlapped with his real skin. The synthetic material fell down to the floor.

He stared. The black leg was in stark contrast with the other. Multiple panels were connected to form the shell which had given shape to the leg. At the front of his knee panels overlapped and moved over each other to allow range of motion. The back of the knee was hollow. The joint, dual pistons and a thick metal cable were visible. His ankle was similar; paneling opening up to reveal twin pistons and the continuation of that thick cord.

The toe of the left foot – which wasn't really a toe – didn't hurt anymore.

He didn't feel anything.

The right leg still looked like his own. But it was a lie. A pain started to build in his foot, as his brain was trying to play tricks on him, transferring the pain from the left foot to the right.

Heero attempted to dig his nails into the rubbery layer, but he couldn't pierce it. Then he thought to start at the edge, over his thigh. Rather than tearing it open, he rolled it down the length of his leg. It was fairly easy, as he supposed it was meant to be, for the purpose of replacing it. It came free as an inside out sleeve, that fell to the floor shapelessly.

Neither foot was hurting anymore.

A calm settled over him. His heart rate slowed.

He studied them with only an apathetic interest. If not for the ankles and the hollow knee, it looked like he was wearing thigh-high metal boots.

He moved his toes back and forth on the hinge that could now be seen. The mechanics were soundless, even as he experimentally rolled his ankles and bent his knees, as if he was discovering them for the first time. As if he hadn't been walking around on these legs for months now. It was odd to see them move, now that the trickery of his mind had ceased.

The carbon fiber was cold and smooth to the touch. He couldn't feel the imbedded net of titanium.

These weren't his legs. His brain accepted that now. Maybe one day, he could too.

* * *

**Fun fact (or not): This entire story started out as an idea for a tragic/thriller/horror oneshot in which Heero had his legs amputated and replaced by prosthetics, after which he suffered a psychotic break - the realization that his legs weren't real, caused him to think his entire body wasn't real and that the people around him weren't real, which led to him killing Duo. So... there's that. Haha, hope you like the alternative route I've chosen. **


End file.
